Royals
by Sookie Starchild
Summary: Legolas is a straight-laced EBI agent. Gimli is an uncontrollable hurricane of justice working with the Dale PD. Can they find a way to work together to stop a drug lord known only as The Necromancer? Based on the film The Heat, done by request. Lots of profanity, vulgarisms, obscenities and fantastical racism.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: So, this is an extremely unusual fic for me for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I'm posting it as a multi-chap. I'm writing it for my sister (who has pneumonia) because she asked for this very specific, very strange mash-up. "Do _The Heat _with Legolas and Gimli. *wheezing cough* It would really cheer me up." Never let it be said that I'm not up for a challenge._

* * *

There was a pause.

For a timeless second, a moment between moments, fourteen agents of the Elven Bureau of Investigation thought that Legolas Greenleaf had made a mistake. The house he had brought them to was neither simple nor grand. They saw no signs of the tawdry opulence of Men who lived on tainted coin, no gold door knobs or tiger print welcome mats, no neon green Lamborghinis. But there were also no chain link fences, appliances in the front garden, or under-fed hounds trained to fight for scraps and snap their jaws at law and order. In short, it didn't look like the kind of places they usually found huge amounts of illegal narcotics and stolen weapons in.

But Legolas knew better. He could feel the house preparing itself. The windows burned with colourless rage, the door tightened on its hinges, the grass blades sharpened into slim razors beneath trees that whispered songs of warning. This was a place that thought it was clever, thought it had hidden itself among drudgery, but it was doing no such thing. _I devour servants of justice. I can feel you coming, Agent Greenleaf._

Yes. This was definitely the right address.

He signaled to the infiltration team to move forward. They surround the house with the silence of a midnight snowfall, their steps quieter even than their breath. Of all agents present, only one did not hail from Rivendell, and that was Legolas himself. This was not unusual. A good two thirds of the Bureau had been raised in Imladris, and could trade stories of the Hall of Fire and the fickle moods of the Bruinen. They were excellent at Special Weapons and Tactical teams. They were also dicks, ninety percent of the time.

Legolas approached Elrohir, head of SWAT, and pointed with two fingers forward, then quickly to his left. He then spun his fingers clockwise twice, and pointed them right.

"What are you doing?" Asked Elrohir in hushed tones.

"Don't you know the signals of the hunt?"

"No. But I know how to bust down front doors and shoot meth addicts in the head, will that serve you?"

"…Yes." Legolas looked over his shoulder at the rest of the team, who were making no efforts to hide the rolls of their eyes. "We'll go on three. One. Two—"

The team advanced.

"Three."

The wood of the door shattered as the team battered it in, with Elrohir's loud cry:

"EBI! Nobody move! EBI!"

Two men sat upon a beige sofa, their hands in the air. They did not look surprised or frightened. Legolas had often heard that an innocent man should not seem afraid, but he knew that this was a fool's notion of wisdom. The innocent were often fearful, because the innocent were often confused. It was the people who didn't seem put-off by a sudden EBI raid that were worrisome. He waited patiently as the team searched the premises for contraband, and he sighed when one of his fellow agents shook his head.

"Place is clean. There's nothing here."

"Shit. Great lead, Little Leaf." Elrohir scoffed, "Alright. Let's clear out."

"Oh," Legolas folded his arms across his chest, "You don't think there's anything here? This place is clean and I made a mistake? I've been told that before. Last year. I don't know if you heard about the serial killer in Bree – the one I very publicly caught. The one nobody else _could_ catch. Did you guys hear about that?"

"Yes. Everybody in the Bureau heard about that." The agent nodded.

"Did you guys hear about that?" Legolas asked the two suspects on the couch. They also nodded. "I was told that there wasn't evidence in his house, but then we opened up the cellar and found quite a few… unpleasantries."

"Here we go." Elrohir muttered.

Legolas paced the room, his eyes searching and his ears prickling with the sound of a thousand creaking whispers. He tried to suppress his grin.

"Funny thing about these houses of Men. They're built out of a little plaster and quite a bit of wood," he ran his fingers along the edge of a coffee table, "This used to be a tree, and I speak the language of trees."

He reached under the top of the table and ripped out a carefully wrapped brick of gold dust, which was of course not made of gold at all. It was slang for a particularly potent psychoactive chemical that happened to resemble actual gold dust, and so the Dwarves had nicknamed it and everyone else had gone along. The Elves had four official names for the substance, but no one who was not an elf could ever seem to pronounce them correctly. Legolas tossed the package to Elrohir and sauntered towards the hearth.

"You can forgive my colleagues for not finding that. If this house was made out of river water or moonlight or flute music, they'd have sewn this whole thing up. It's a matter of specialties." Legolas nodded at the mantle, the sides of which were decorated with simple runes and carvings of horses, "Did you know this entire neighbourhood was built by the horse-lords? They were training the local militia in cavalry tactics, about a century ago. I read up about it last night. The whole project was a massive failure, but the houses are still here. I suppose you know a lot about this sort of thing."

The men on the sofa exchanged confused looks.

"What's a cavalry?" Asked the one with sandy hair.

"Really?" Legolas asked.

"_Really?_" Elrohir echoed.

The man didn't seem to understand what all the disappointment was about.

"Now I'm sure you must not know about the Rohirrim's fun habit of hiding their valuables. Sometimes they put little switches around, but it's practically impossible to find them," Legolas leaned back in such a way that his elbow nudged against a square of the mantelpiece, and behind him a panel began to slide open. "Did anybody else hear a click? I thought I heard a click."

Elrohir's left eye began to twitch as he made a quick count and identification of the weapons that now appeared behind Legolas. Mostly submachine guns, a few handguns, two military grade sniper rifles, and all of them tagged with either pink, blue, green or orange forestry tape. It could have been to keep track of which weapons had been sold and to which buyers, but given the apparent intelligence of the suspects sitting on the couch, it was probably just so that they didn't forget what kind of bullets went in what kind of gun.

"Okay," Legolas smiled, still leaning against the mantle, "Now we can go."

He was still expecting the rush. The feeling he got watching a movie where the police officers quipped and busted perps the way Hobbits ate snacks, that sudden swelling of the heart and the deep desire to keep being amazing at his job. But he never actually got that rush. For the most part, all he got was annoyed side-glances and people whispering surprisingly catty things when he walked by. As he made his way out to the car, he was certain he heard a member of the SWAT team call him a whore. He told himself it didn't matter. His job was to annihilate corruption, and he had done a small piece of that.


	2. Chapter 2

Legolas felt so hollow, he ate three loaves of honey cake straight out of the freezer. He didn't even wait for it to thaw.

He had exactly two voice messages. The first was from Special Agent Elrohir, informing him of the official seizure of the contraband found that day. It was also frequently peppered with the word _Douche_. The second managed to be even more depressing.

"This is the office of the Elvenking of the Woodland Realm, He Who Sits Upon the Throne at Amon Lanc. He wishes you to enjoy your celebrations on this day, the anniversary of your birth; and reminds you that should you ever desire a more useful occupation, he is willing to make the necessary arrangements."

"Thank you, message." Legolas groaned at the phone in his hand, "Thank you for reminding me that every corner of my life is awful."

He went into the bedroom, which was completely undecorated, and took off his shirt and his socks, then collapsed face-forward onto the mattress. He was starting to get cramps from the frozen cake expanding in his stomach, and he stayed lying in this way for the better part of an hour, wondering often if he was actually going to start crying. Before he could, his cell phone pinged. It was the alert he'd set up to let him know when news stories were posted about his department. He'd done it to keep track of the coverage in Bree, and never bothered to turn it off.

Legolas grabbed the phone and rolled over onto his back.

There was a photograph of a very elegant woman and a headline reading: Director of EBI Major Crimes Transfers to BAU Gondor.

"What?" He mumbled, scrolling through the article that explained his current superior's imminent departure. "What, what, what?"

She was apparently transferring to the ridiculously small Minas Tirith office, which was almost exclusively devoted to trying to figure out what crazy people might do. It looked like a step down, but apparently it was because she was getting married. Then he got to the good part.

_No replacement has been announced for the position of Director of EBI Major Crimes for Lórien/Rivendell_.

Legolas sat up like a lightning bolt.

If he were in charge, no subordinate could make derogatory remarks. He would not have to bow to the whims of specialists in the field. He would be making a name for himself. And why shouldn't he be the top of the list? He had never led an unsuccessful raid, his paperwork was immaculate, and his record was extremely impressive. Besides, she couldn't give the job to Elrohir, everyone would think that was nepotism and nobody would respect his authority. It was perfect. His stars were finally aligning.

"Oh, I really should not have eaten that cake." He groaned, trying to stand up.

The next morning, as he walked through the gleaming lobby of the Justice Building, it was almost impossible to tell that he'd spent seven hours of the previous night vomiting. He was wearing his steel grey suit with the silver tie and his only dress shirt that wasn't a shade of green. It was blue, and he had bought specifically for the purpose of blending in with the Rivendell Elves when a promotion was on the table. He took a deep breath before tapping on the glass office door.

Inside the woman from the photo was typing away at some report. Her desk was well-organized, with a vase of white flowers and a long brass nameplate that read Director Evenstar, The Lady Arwen.

"What can I do for you, Agent Greenleaf?" She asked, without looking up from her work.

"I just wanted to quickly talk to you about one of my fellow agents. I don't want to name any names, but he insists on calling me Little Leaf when we're in the field and I—"

"Is it Elrohir? It's Elrohir." She sighed, closed her laptop and pushed it to one side, "I honestly can't do anything about that. He once spent an entire Solstice Feast calling our father Fat-Ass, and nobody could stop him. It was the second most awkward dinner I've ever been to in my life."

"But…" Legolas shook his head, "Lord Elrond is _known_ for being slender."

"It's my understanding that it was because Father had taken too many yams before the dish had a chance to go around the entire table. I have no idea what goes on in my brother's head, and I can't stop him once he's got his heart set on a derogatory nickname that isn't racist. Just try to ignore him."

"Oh. Well. Okay." Legolas nodded, then stood there. Pointedly not leaving.

Arwen waited for exactly ten seconds of silence before she said:

"Is this about the promotion?"

"What? Hmm?" Legolas tried to look surprised, "Is there some kind of promotion? I hadn't heard."

Arwen sighed and sat back in her chair. "Shut the door and have a seat."

Legolas did as he was told, but he was getting the distinct impression that this was not going to go the way he wanted it to.

"Agent Greenleaf, I know it's tough," she said, "When I started, there were quite a few people who questioned my ability to do this job. I can't imagine what it's like to have _everyone_ questioning your _entire_ perspective. I respect your tenacity. Now, I haven't made any official decisions yet, but just between you and me… it's probably not going to be you."

"Why not?" Legolas asked, "I close the most cases, don't I?"

"Yes. You are definitely a closer, Greenleaf. And that's good. But nobody likes you. Socially or professionally."

"I don't think that's—who says this, exactly?"

"Everyone." Arwen nodded, "Look, you go around stating the obvious like you invented it. When you know something that other people don't, you smile that smug little princely smile that makes everyone want to punch you in the groin, even me and I'm known for my wisdom and gentle temperament. It's one thing if you can't get along with Men or Dwarves, but you're always irritating the other Elves. They think you have too high an opinion of yourself. I don't want to dig it out, but I have an official complaint from a Hobbit you met in Bree who said that you made him feel like he wasn't being taken seriously, and this is a person who signs his name _Fatty Bolger_."

"Alright," Legolas said very slowly, as though he didn't quite understand but had decided to figure it out later, "But who would you give the position instead of me. Certainly not Elrohir."

"Certainly not. He's needed where he is," she said. "I'm considering asking Glorfindel."

Legolas shook his head.

"I thought he was retiring."

"A desk job _is_ retiring, as far as he's concerned."

"You know, there're quite a few people who say that you're as lovely as Galadriel, but I like to tell them that you're far lovelier."

"That's not going to work."

Legolas sat in the small office chair, knitting his brow and trying to puzzle the whole thing out. Finally he just gave up. "Is there anything I can do to improve my chances?"

Arwen sighed. She wondered if perhaps she was too warm-hearted, but she couldn't bring herself to take the kid down at the knees. There was, in fact, one thing he could do.

"Alright," she pulled a file folder out of her desk, "We caught this one because of a jurisdictional hiccup. A drug lord calling himself the Necromancer, causing all kinds of problems. Extortion, murder, and now it sounds like he's putting out a purposefully lethal product. Don't know what it is, but we've been asked to go into Dale."

The EBI presence in the Greenwood was non-existent, the Bureau itself didn't improve that by calling that entire region "East Lórien" instead of Rhovanion, and so they had no offices in that part of the world. The only way they could go into a local case was if they were invited, and if they were invited they were duty-bound to investigate. It didn't happen often, since it was mostly Dwarf country.

"_DALE_?!" Legolas shouted without realizing he was shouting, "YOU WANT ME TO GO INTO DALE?!"

"It's not an easy one. I was going to give it to Lindir, and I still will if you don't want it. But if you do well with this, we can have a serious discussion about your opportunities."

Legolas took a steadying breath.

"When do I leave?"

"As soon as you're done packing your bag."


	3. Chapter 3

Dale. City of stone at the skirt of Erebor. Known for good drink and fine hospitality, but not known for its high crime rate. This had often struck Gimli as odd, because surely everyone knew that the corruption that had run rampant in Esgaroth couldn't really go away. Sitting in his beat-up car, surrounded by take-away wrappers and empty soda bottles, watching the girls on the corner, he wondered if places were as much like people as everyone said. Curses on dragon gold, scars of old wars, dark hearts and the thumbprints of poverty and famine. Was it really a city that held onto these things? Or just the people inside of a city, remembering the stories of their fathers and their fathers' fathers?

Then again, there was life in stone and life in walls. It was a philosophical discussion he'd had with himself before, and it didn't look like it was going to be solved. Just when he was on the cusp of some new revelation, a dark blue SUV pulled up to where the girls were standing. One of them tottered over on heels as tall as the Lonely Mountain, gaudy hair-toggles jangling, and leaned into the passenger window to start negotiations with the driver.

A crackle of static came over Gimli's radio, followed by a dispatcher's voice.

"Hey, Gloinson. Captain wants to know when you're getting back."

He picked up the receiver and pressed the button.

"I'll be back as soon as the captain gets his head out of his arse. So, maybe never, then. Tell him I might never be back."

Gimli could feel the silence on the other end. He could practically picture the poor lad, sitting at the dispatch desk and staring at his radio in disbelief.

"…I'm gonna go ahead and not actually tell him that."

The Dwarf chuckled to himself as he got out of his car and made his way to the SUV. The other girls milling around the corner noticed him and managed some weak smiles and small waves as they backed away from their friend, who was still talking business. Gimli smoothed his hair behind his ears and stood on his toes so he could lean into the driver's side window. It was a car for Men, so it was a little high up for him, but he managed.

"Fine day, aye?" He greeted.

The working girl noticed him then and rolled her eyes.

"I don't want any gold dust, man." The driver said. He was a slim, middle-aged man with thinning hair and a slimy disposition.

"You trying to get a deal here?" Gimli nodded at the girl.

"Yeah. Why, are you her pimp or some…thing… ah, shit."

The driver's voice trailed off as Gimli lifted up his badge, giving it a demonstrative shake for good measure. The girl rolled her eyes again and cleared off completely. The man let out an uncomfortable laugh.

"Ha. Hey. Well. I guess it's good I didn't want any gold dust, right?" He said, attempting a wobbly smile.

"Aye, that would've been embarrassing," Gimli agreed. The man chuckled, and he laughed along, giving the car door a thump with his hand. Then he stopped cold. "Now, I'm going to need your identification."

"Oh come on, pal, seriously?" He pleaded.

"Identification," Gimli insisted, squeezing the window frame just hard enough to prompt an ominous creak. The man was still trying to cajole him out of it when he pulls his wallet out of the glove compartment, so after a few seconds, Gimli hefted himself up high enough that he could reach one burly arm straight into the car and yank the whole thing out of his hands.

"Hey!" The man protested. The wallet was new and smelled of good leather, the creases barely worn in, and was home to a hearty amount of cash. Near the man's driver's license was a picture of a smiling woman, holding a new baby, as well as several rosy-cheeked children. Gimli nodded when he saw them.

"Well that _is_ a relief," he said. "I was nervous that you might not be married. And with quite a flock of children! But, I can see my fears were unfounded. What's your wife's name, then?"

The man groaned in dismay.

"…Bella," he admitted.

"Bella. Alright," Gimli nodded. "I'll need to see your phone."

"What? Why do you need to see my phone?"

Gimli raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. So it's going to be _like_ that, is it?" He murmured ominously.

"No, no, no." The man immediately backpedaled. "It's not going to be like anything! I'm cooperating!" He insisted, reaching into the glove box to retrieve his phone as well. Gimli snatched it out of his hand, and scrolled through the numbers until he found 'Bella'. The woman's name was tellingly low down on the list. After a few rings, a fairly lyrical voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Bella?" Gimli asked. The man immediately made a lunge to reclaim his phone. Gimli snatched his wrist and gave it a sharp twist; not strong enough to break, but more than enough to serve as a distraction.

"Yes. Who is this?" The woman sounded a little flustered, then, clearly taken aback by the unfamiliar voice.

"This is Officer Gloinson. I'm here with your husband," he explained. "No, no, he hasn't been in an accident. But I'm sorry to say that I've just caught him the process of soliciting a known prostitute."

"He's lying!" The man screeched. "He's lying, Bella!"

Gimli gave his wrist another twist.

"Oh it's not the first time? Yes. Yes, those sounds are him. No, but I am in the process of breaking his hand. Oh, do it harder, you say?" He gave the wrist a wrench for good measure, and the man made a particularly unpleasant, high-pitched shriek. "Yes. Alright. No, I wouldn't blame you one bit. You're welcome," Gimli said, then hung up. "Well, she didn't seem too pleased with you."

"Oh come on!" The man cried. "You don't understand. She just had a baby. There's… it's all… there's a lot going on _down there_. I'm not going to touch that!"

Gimli nodded, a few times, and tossed the cell phone back into the car. His expression was contemplative. Then he reached out, and wrenched the car door open, yanking so hard that the hinges squealed.

"Get the fuck out of the car!" he snapped.

"What?" The man asked. "What?"

Gimli reached into the cab and yanked him out onto the pavement. He scrabbled when he hit the ground, and then struggled as Gimli planted a knee in his back.

"This is police brutality!" he wailed.

"Where the fuck do you think you are? The fucking Shire?" Gimli demanded, wrenching his arms backwards and shoving them roughly into handcuffs. "You think the police should serve you tea on a nice doily before we arrest you for coming out here, cheating on your lovely wife after she's given you your _fifth_ child because her reproductive organs aren't neat and tidy enough for your exacting standards? Cry me a fucking river. I'm sure the lads down at the department will all be happy to spare you a sympathetic ear, once they've finished using your pimply arse for target. You're lucky we're not in Erebor, or else I could castrate you myself."

The man loosed a shrill noise that was an almost pitch-perfect mix of horror and terror. Gimli yanked him back on to his considerable legs, and dragged him over to his own beat-up car.

"Could you close my car door at least?" he whimpered.

"No."


	4. Chapter 4

Gimli's tires screeched against the pavement as his car stopped in front of four goblins, loitering against a chain-link fence. Two of them were small, wiry creatures, the kind of goblins that had once lived in the Misty Mountains. The others were Orcs. Gimli knew that there were subtle differences between Orcs and Goblins; he'd once been told that all Orcs were Goblins, but not all Goblins were Orcs (or was it the other way around?)

Unfortunately for his department's reputation with the lords of tolerance, he had no idea what those differences were. All he knew was that he was looking at four kinds of ugly. The one who was a familiar face – if it could be called a face in good conscience – was the one standing in the middle, smoking a long handled pipe.

"Afternoon, Shagrat!" Gimli called to him, "Look what I've got!"

He jerked his thumb towards the backseat, where the man he'd arrested was sitting in handcuffs, with his head tilting against the roof of the Dwarven-made car. The Orc shrugged like he had no idea why it should matter to him.

"It's one of your customers," Gimli explained. "So you lost a little business today. I'd apologize about it, if you weren't an arsehole criminal scumbag."

Shagrat shook his head.

"Don't know what you is talkin' about." His voice sounded like a lump of coal in a blender.

"I suppose, then, that it's just a fun coincidence? You standing here, in the middle of all of the prostitutes? If I drew us a map of all of the places prostitutes are known to work, and then I drew lines that connected all of those dots, do you know what we'd find right where the lines crossed?" Gimli smiled encouragingly, but the Orc didn't answer. "You! Isn't that interesting?"

"Stupid Dwarf," Shagrat scoffed, "Obsessed with me. Must be racist. Can't stand to see Orcs so close to the mountain, takin' good gold."

"Fuck you!" Gimli shouted, "This is a progressive city. We live in modern times. There's room for anybody who wants to live clean and earn an honest wage, even fucking gobos. If you tried this shit in _literally anywhere else in the world_, they'd hang you by your ankles over a fire."

Shagrat took a long drag on his pipe.

"What I think is that you work too hard," he told Gimli, "All day, chasing shadows that ain't there. Tires any creature to the bone. You need a spa day, go get your beard braided, have a skin peel. Start lookin' after yourself, so that you can look after the streets."

"What is in your pipe?" Gimli asked, with cold steel in his eyes.

There was a brief pause while Shagrat considered his options in terms of lies he could tell, and the odds of those lies being believed. He knew that he was not clever. Calmly, he handed the pipe to one of the other Orcs.

Then he booked it as fast as he could in the opposite direction of Gimli.

Gimli's car started with a tremendous roar, and he spun it in a perfect u-turn.

"This is good," he said to his prisoner in the back, "I was worried I wouldn't get a chance to run anybody over today."

"Please don't do this!" Wailed the man, "You can get psychiatric help! PEOPLE CAN FIX WHATEVER IS WRONG WITH YOUR BRAIN!"

Gimli laughed and laughed as his car caught up with the Orc. Shagrat wasn't as swift as his brothers from the mines, he was originally from Cirith Ungol, and that meant he relied more on muscle than speed. Still, he was quicker than a Man and quicker than a Dwarf. But not quicker than a Dwarf's car.

"You're doing really well!" Gimli shouted out of the window at Shagrat, "You're almost fast enough!"

He slammed his foot down on the pedal, and the car surged forward with a burst of speed. The bumper smacked into the back of Shagrat's legs, and he rolled onto the hood and into the windshield with a sickening thud. The glass cracked a little in the corner.

"Shit." Gimli grumbled, shutting off the engine and unbuckling his seatbelt, "I just had that replaced."

He got out and headed to Shagrat's seemingly unconscious body, which slowly slid off of the car and onto the pavement. Gimli had a set of cuffs and was kneeling down when the Orc suddenly swiped at his face with a clawed hand. He felt himself leave the ground and sail backwards through the air before landing against a wall.

Shagrat was up and running.

So was Gimli.

The chase led them through the narrow side streets of the city, over cobbled roads and down back alleys, until Shagrat jumped a gate and found himself in the marketplace. Colourful awnings, the smell of spice and baking bread, the rattle of coins and the calls of vendors. He smiled, thinking that he'd finally found the perfect place to hide.

But that was when the pumpkin hit the back of his head. Gimli hadn't even known what it was, he'd just jumped the fence and picked up the nearest heavy object. Shagrat had paused, and he knew that he couldn't afford the same luxury.

People gasped and a crowd gathered as the Dwarf slammed the Orc's face into the sidewalk and put the handcuffs on him.

Gimli looked around at all the puzzled expressions.

"As long as there are Dwarves in the Halls of Erebor, this city shall know justice."

* * *

It wasn't very exciting in the Dale Department of Justice. All of the interesting things happened on the street, and all of the best discussions happened in the nearest taverns. The office, which was in a spacious building with smooth stone walls the colour of morning sunlight, was primarily the place everyone went to finish their paperwork and complain about the coffee. Or, at least, that's how it seemed to Agent Dernhelm.

She had forged quite a few papers to get out where the action was, only to discover that there wasn't any action. Just drug dealers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the fresh meat making his way through the bullpen. Tall, but all elves were tall; fair-haired like she was, but she didn't know if that meant anything among elves; and walking like he outranked everyone in the office. Wonderful. She'd been worrying that there weren't enough self-righteous dicks in her workplace, but it would be okay because now there was another one.

"Excuse me?" He asked, coming up to her ask, "I was told to find an Agent… Dunhold? Durnhill?"

"Dernhelm." She said with a curt smile, "That's me. And you're Special Agent Greenleaf. I was told you were coming."

Legolas looked at her.

"Rohirrim?"

"Eorlingas."

"Isn't that the same thing?" He raised a cocky eyebrow.

"There's a subtle difference." She continued to smile, but it was a struggle. "I've sorted through everything we have on this new drug. Some of the kids are calling it The Ring. The appeal is, apparently, that you go increasingly insane and begin to have delusions of grandeur. Deep hallucinations. The problem is that it kills you after fourteen days. I've also pulled our information on the Necromancer, which isn't much. His chief contact around here is a figure who calls himself the Witch-King. We know almost less about him than we do about his boss."

She nodded at an enormous stack of folders on the side of her desk. "Those are for you."

"Thanks for the assistance," Legolas nodded, picking up the files, "You know, I cracked a case thanks to my knowledge of the Rohirrim, just the other day. A couple of perps – humans call them perps, I understand – were hiding contraband in a horse-lord's safe."

"Was it drugs?" Dernhelm asked dryly.

"No. Actually. It was a selection of weaponry."

"Well, that's closer to the spirit of the thing." She shrugged, "Would you like me to show you to your desk?"

"No. I'm not staying. I've got a town to clean up."

"Well, it's good that someone is here to do that. Because this office full of Justice Workers is all mortal, so, you know, we never get _anything_ done."

"Knowing your faults is half the battle, Dunham." Legolas nodded confidently and strode out of the office, just as the phone on Dernhelm's desk started ringing.

He took the elevator instead of the stairs because his arms were full, and spent his time talking to the other riders about how wonderful Dale's integration programs were. Giving women from the sticks the chance to go and see how real crimes were solved. Very inclusive.

When he got down to the lobby, he was surprised to find Agent Dernhelm waiting for him. She'd taken the stairs.

"Just got a call from Captain Brand." She said, holding the door open for him, "They've got an Orc down in the lock-up with some connections to the Witch-King. You'll want to go south until you see the big building that looks like a lock-up. If you get lost, just pull over and ask somebody for directions."

"Elves are skilled drivers. I won't need directions." Legolas told her, getting into the car that the Bureau had rented for him. It was designed for Men, but that was alright. The only alternative would have been to get an Elven car shipped in from the Greenwood, and that wasn't an appealing idea.

Dernhelm closed his door for him.

"Good luck out there, Greenleaf."

"It's not about luck, Denim." He said confidently and pulled out of his space only to find himself sitting in a wall of traffic.

"Welcome to Dale!" Dernhelm called from the curb, with an enthusiastic wave.


	5. Chapter 5

"Hello, my beauty!" Gimli called into the drive-thru speaker, "I'll need two bowman's boxes with extra cheese and fried onions, and a dragon blood shake."

The dragon blood was just raspberry juice.

"Oh! And do ye still have the hot peppers with the creamy cheese in them? That were deep fried?"

"Yes we do." The girl's voice answered from the middle of the sign.

"Good, I'd care for those in place of my fries. And a chicken-lamb burrito. Tell the cook not to go lightly on the spicy sauce! I don't know a soul who eats those things for anything but the sauce!" In fact, Gimli had long harbored a suspicion that the chicken-lamb mixture was not made from chickens or lambs at all, but the sauce was totally irresistible to him.

"Would you like to try our new dessert special? It's a strawberry shortcake baked into a pie."

Gimli thought about it.

"Yes. Yes, I'll try one of those."

She repeated the order and asked if he'd like anything else, but he was pretty satisfied with his choices. He pulled up to the window and handed the girl a Veteran's Discount card. It was actually his father's, for services rendered during the reclaiming of Erebor from the dragon Smaug; but his old man never went into Dale, so it wasn't like he was taking advantage.

He ate while he drove down to the lock-up, which was easier than it sounded because the traffic in the city was notoriously horrible during rush hour. It would have gone much more smoothly if everyone had just walked home, but no one ever did. Walking was for Southerners.

By the time he got back to work, he was slurping the dregs of his shake, with only the new dessert item left to go. It had sounded alright when the girl had described it, but seeing it in person made him a little queasy. Too sweet by far, if the scent of it meant anything. He had set it aside, and was building up his courage to try it.

"Good luck!" He called cheerfully, noticing that his favourite space out front of the building was open. He pulled into the empty spot alongside the hydrant, and just as he was about to back up a silvery-white sedan jumped into his space.

"Hey!" He called back at the sedan's driver, "Hey, arsehole! That's not okay! You can't fucking do that!"

An Elf got out of the enemy car, which wasn't exactly the biggest surprise Gimli had ever gotten in his life.

"That was my spot! Hey!" Gimli slammed his hands against the steering wheel and started to wind down his passenger side window, "I'm talking to you!"

The Elf waved one of those dismissive little elf-waves and headed into the building. Gimli could feel his whole face shaking with rage. He took a few deep breaths – not the calming ones, but the kind a bull takes before he charges. With a measured and eerie calmness, he pulled out of the spot his was in and backed up so that his car was alongside the Elf's. Then he picked up the shortcake monstrosity on the seat beside him and threw it, and all his other lunchtime garbage, into the sedan.

Maybe you could steal parking spaces and leave your driver's side window down in Lothlórien, but that shit didn't fly in Dale.

* * *

The lock-up was one of the oldest buildings in the city. It had been built under the rule of Lord Girion, and hadn't been changed much. There were narrow hallways and winding staircases, and the entire third floor, which was the headquarters of the Dale Police Department, was practically a maze. When it was built, it had been built far south of the city, to make certain it was nicely out of people's way. But Dale had grown, and now it was surrounded by high-rise condos and across the street from an artisanal bakery. There was something glamorous to young entrepreneurs about having an address on Lock-Up Road. Legolas thought the whole neighborhood smelled of burnt hair.

"EBI." He flashed his badge to the guard at the front desk and breezed right into the heart of the building.

"Um, sir?" The guard's voice faded behind him, "Elf? Agent Elf? You need to sign in!"

He hurried up to the third floor, following the helpful signs that the local officers had put up. _Leave it to the Children of Men to build a building they got lost in_, Legolas thought with a smile. He finally managed to find the bullpen, without once realizing that the sings had purposefully led him through a circuitous route.

Inside phones were ringing, uniformed officers were taking statements, unsavory characters were sitting in plastic chairs, and the entire room was a buzzing hive of activity. Legolas felt like his ears would catch fire from trying to sort out all of that noise, but he braced himself against his discomfort and pushed onward.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Captain Brand?" He asked a uniformed officer sitting at a nearby desk and hunched over photographs of an assault victim. The officer pointed in the direction of a dark-haired man with a beard who was drinking coffee from a tankard. At least, Legolas hoped that it was coffee, since it was three o'clock in the afternoon on a weekday and that man was on duty. He suddenly flashed back to his father's selection of 'breakfast wines' and shuddered.

Captain Brand noticed his new guest and waited. _Always look dour, never feel helpful, do the most useful things anyone can imagine_. It was his family's creed.

"Special Agent Greenleaf," Legolas said, holding up his badge, "This office informed the Department of Justice that you recently brought in a dealer known as Shagrat the Vagrant. He's connected to an EBI investigation."

"Certainly." Brand nodded, "But Detective Gloinson isn't back from lunch yet. You can sit anywhere you find a chair."

"I'm sure Detective… Gloinson? Won't mind if I question the suspect."

"Hah." The Captain said, "That's probably not true. Gloinson doesn't like people going near his collars."

Legolas nodded wisely. A competitive nature had no place in law enforcement.

"Let me tell you what I think," he said, "I think that every second we spend standing here, is another second of time that you're taking away from an official Elven investigation. And I think you're the kind of man who knows what it looks like when you interfere with the EBI, especially after your own Justice Department _asked_ for our assistance. So if you would be so kind as to show this Shagrat character into an interrogation room, my reports will reflect your cooperation."

Captain Brand nodded and led the way. Legolas had given exactly the kind of speech necessary to remind the good captain that diversity was all well and good until you found yourself with a by-the-book Elf. And this was why his department would be happy to let in anyone who wanted to serve, as long as their ears didn't point at the top.


	6. Chapter 6

The good news was that a Dwarven car could fit into any parking space it wanted to. The bad news was that there were no parking spaces. Gimli circled the block three times waiting for an opening, then finally pulled into the back lot where the squadron cars were kept. He pulled into the space in between two occupied spaces and parked. This was illegal, and because it was such a tight fit, he was forced to climb out of his own window, groping against the squad car beside him, and make his way onto the roof of his own car. He huffed and puffed the whole while, cursing the Elf who was responsible for his predicament, and vowing never to forgive any Elven folk.

Ever.

For anything.

Once he was comfortably back on solid ground, he adjusted his beard and smoothed down his t-shirt. He rolled his shoulders back a few times and walked proudly into the lock-up. The desk sergeant started shaking as soon as he saw him, which was not a good sign. The desk sergeants were only afraid of Gimli when there was a _reason_ to be afraid of Gimli.

"Something the matter, lad?" The Dwarf asked in a cold, unkindly way.

"No. Uh-uh." The sergeant shook his head so much, Gimli was half expecting salt to come out of the man's ears, "No. Nothing's the matter. Per se."

Gimli's eyes narrowed.

"Why don't I like the sound of that _per se_?"

"Because… you like plain, common language?"

This was the wrong answer. Gimli decided to indicate this by folding his enormously muscular arms over his broad chest, and flexing – ever so subtly – all the little parts of his upper body that made him seem dangerous.

"Where," he said very clearly, "Is Shagrat?"

"He's in Room Three. With the Elf."

* * *

Shagrat was cuffed and sitting with his knees out and his elbows on the table. He didn't look like he felt like talking, and there was a massive bruise on the back of his neck. It was from the pumpkin. Across from him, Legolas was sitting cool and confident.

"Possession with Intent to Sell. That doesn't sound like a good thing, does it?" Legolas said, "In this district, that's a Class D drug charge. Chapter 94C, section 32A."

"I had some Mean Old Toby and a couple packets of gold dust." Shagrat shrugged, "Since when is that shit illegal?"

"Have you heard tell of the Spring of Arda?"

"Dawn of time, wassnit?"

"Since then." Legolas ignored the look of total confusion on the Orc's face and kept talking, "With your priors, you're looking at thirty years of jail time and some pretty stiff fines. Back in Rivendell, pulling something like this would cost you seventy of the rarest blue gems and you'd never be allowed to attend outdoor concerts _ever again_. That's a lifetime ban of experiencing beauty. You're lucky the Men are more lenient than we are."

"What the hell do I care about some fuckin' outdoor concert?!" Shagrat shouted, his voice somehow getting even more grit into it, "I'm looking at thirty years off me fuckin' life!"

Legolas cast his blue eyes downward and nodded thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry, how long do Orcs live? Natural lifespan, I mean. I know you're kind usually goes out with a bang."

Shagrat's jaw dropped.

"Nevermind," Legolas waved the subject away. "Let me show you something, and you can give me your opinion. What do you think these photographs mean?"

He laid images of street carnage out on the table. Bodies cut up and run through, eyes rolling to look at things beyond the mortal realm, and pools of blood in every scene. They were not pleasant, but they were not shocking to Shagrat. He merely raised an eyebrow at them and shook his head.

Legolas smiled.

"Shall I tell you what I see? I see someone who doesn't like having other dealers on his turf. But you're still here, and you're still selling. Why is that, Shagrat? Who are you working for?"

"Ain't working for nobody, Princess."

"Who are you working for?"

"Nobody."

"Who are you working for?"

"NOBODY!"

Shagrat's eyes grew wild, black saliva dribbling at the corner of his mouth, his breathing was ragged and heavy.

"I ain't workin' for nobody."

The atmosphere was tense, desperate. Legolas could feel cold stone beneath his feet and cold stone in the walls around him, lifeless and soulless. But there was the wooden table, and with his palm upon it, he reconnected to the heart of the wood. The quiet hunt. A stag had to feel tranquil and alone, or else it would flee. If you wanted to eat, you learned to be patient. To seem safe even when you were at your most dangerous.

"I don't want you to go to jail," he said, "I don't want you locked up, rotting away. And I don't want you to be found on a street corner, gutted like a boar."

He tapped one of the more gruesome photos.

"I can protect you. But you have to aid me in my investigation."

Shagrat sniffed loudly.

"Yeah. I can help you."

"Tell me where to find the Witch-King."

"Dunno that. I get my shit from a creepy little bugger called Grima."

"Can you describe him?" Legolas asked.

Shagrat thought for a minute.

"He's unsettlin'. Like a real… creepy little bugger."

"Is it possible for you to be more specific?"

Shagrat nodded. "He gives you kind of a skin-crawlin' feel. Like hearing nails on a chalkboard, but it's when you look at his face. And he's just… creepy. Disgustin' a bit, but you can't quite put your finger on why. Like you sees him, and you know nobody ever has him round to dinner. That sorta thing."

"That's not – can you give me any information about his physical appearance?"

The Orc let out a long sigh while he thought.

"Bloke ain't got no fuckin' eyebrows."


	7. Chapter 7

Gimli had to stand on his toes to look through the window that was in the door of Interrogation Room Three. There was Shagrat, singing like a canary, and there was the Elf.

"What the fuck is this?!" Gimli demanded, throwing the door open with so much forced it slammed against the wall behind it, "You're on a role, aren't you?"

Legolas looked at the angry Dwarf in utter confusion.

"Excuse me?" He asked.

"No, I'm not going to excuse you. I just spent the last thirty minutes thinking of ways to kill you." Gimli turned to Shagrat, "Is he your lawyer? Got some Greenwood arsehole in a tacky suit up here to play footsies with the fine print? Who's paying for this shit? Because Elves won't even get out of bed unless you're going to give them thirty fucking emeralds and a stag made of platinum. Did he give his hourly rates beforehand, or is he trying to scam you?"

Shagrat shook his head and refused to make eye contact with anyone in the room.

"I'm Special Agent Legolas Greenleaf, of the Major Crimes unit," Legolas said calmly, "Can I help you, somehow?"

"Absolutely you can help." Gimli nodded, "You can gather up your basket of flowers and your terrible attitude, and get all of it the fuck out here. This is my room, and you need to leave."

Legolas looked at Shagrat, who was still pointedly not looking at anything, and tried to figure out what was happening.

"Were you about to be questioned by a detective?" He asked Gimli.

"He _is_ a detective." Shagrat said.

"I _am_ a detective." Gimli repeated.

"He arrested me."

"I fucking arrested him."

"Ah!" Legolas nodded knowingly, "You're Gloinson. Of course. I should have realized you'd be a Dwarf. I understand now. Well, Shagrat here will be continuing on with me for—"

"No." Gimli said.

"Yes. The EBI was asked to take over the case by the Justice—"

"That's not going to happen."

"Your efforts are duly noted, and the cooperation of this department will be reflected in my report," Legolas tapped the files on the table, "So, if you could shut the door on the way out…"

Gimli nodded. "Aye, I'll shut the door. You lie down on the floor with your head right in the middle here, and I'll _slam_ the door. One-thousand-seven-hundred-and-fifty times. How's that?"

"You should run," Shagrat whispered to Legolas.

"You should shut your trap." Gimli said to Shagrat.

"You should run like you're on fire," Shagrat whispered, "Because he's crazy."

"You should be quiet." Legolas said.

Gimli stretched his neck one way and then the other, and cracked his knuckles.

"Okay. We'll settle this outside."

"I'm not going outside." Legolas shook his head.

"Then we'll settle it inside." Gimli nodded and shut the door behind him. He pulled off his heavy leather coat and did a few more stretches.

Legolas was stunned. He called over his shoulder to the two-way mirror:

"Could somebody please remove this… _individual_ from the interrogation room?"

"I'm going to hit you." Gimli explained.

Legolas stood up and smiled.

"You're not going to hit me."

"I am. I'm going to punch those hideous braids out of your fucking hair."

"Are you aware that Elves have reflexes completely unlike—"

"Doesn't matter. Being hit in the groin is a bit of an equalizer, laddie. Dwarf, Man, Elf, everyone's the same once they've taken a shot to the beets." Gimli prepared his fist, and Legolas prepared to block.

When Captain Brand strolled in with his tankard of coffee, he found Agent Greenleaf rolling around on the floor with Detective Gloison holding him in a headlock. Greenleaf had a handful of Gloinson's beard and was pulling with considerable ferocity.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Cried Gimli.

"What is wrong with you?!" Shouted Legolas, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Brand watched for awhile, took a few sips of coffee, wondered about the choices he had made in his life that had led him to this moment, and finally said:

"That's enough. Both of you, in my office. Now."

* * *

Gimli looked in the pockets of the coat that was hanging on a peg by the captain's office door, but they were empty.

"Nah," he shook his head, "They're not in there."

"Gimli," Brand said patiently, "There was nothing I could do. The EBI took this case and—"

The Dwarf started picking up files in the Captain's outbox. "Maybe they're in here."

Legolas watched from a chair across from Brand's, as Gimli continued to rifle through every nook and cranny in the room. "Sorry, _what_ is he doing?"

Captain Brand let out a tired sigh.

"He's looking for my balls."

Gimli opened up the office door and called into the noise of the bullpen:

"If anybody finds the captain's balls, could you let me know?" This was greeted by a few nods and dreary expressions, "They're very tiny. Wee little balls. Like hobbit balls, but smaller. Much, much smaller. Like a pea. Like a couple of peas. Or a mouse's balls, but half that size. Incredibly tiny. If you find them, give them back. Because he lost them."

"Knock it off, Gimli." Brand said; Gimli shut the door and turned to look at him.

"Cop of the year, Captain. That's what you are. Everybody knows you have their back."

"That's not very professional." Legolas observed.

Gimli kicked the Elf's briefcase.

"Sorry, was that not professional?" He asked, then picked up the case and emptied out its contents on the office floor, "Is it not professional to mess up your purse, either?"

"It's not a purse. It's an attaché."

Captain Brand and Gimli exchanged confused looks.

"What the fuck is an attaché?"

"Take a walk, Gimli. Cool down." Brand ordered.

"Yeah. I'll go see if you left your balls outside, maybe." The Dwarf marched out of the office and slammed the door behind him, with so loud a noise that both Captain Brand and Legolas winced.

The Elf began picking his things up off the floor.

"This job is destroying me," Brand shook his head, "Do you know how old I am?"

Legolas looked at the man's drawn, tired face and tried to guess.

"Sixty-three?"

"_I'm thirty-eight years old_."

"Elves are not – as a people we can't really guess ages. Well. Because… of reasons."

"This city is a shithole. I come from a line of saviors of a shithole."

"So, anyway," Legolas looked away, clearly uncomfortable, "If you could do everything in your power to keep that mad Dwarf away from me…"

He patted his pockets, then looked inside his briefcase. His eyes were wide and worried.

"Gloinson stole your keys, didn't he?"

"Yes. It appears he did. Do you know where I can find him?"

"Tavern downtown called Iron Folk's." Brand looked Legolas up and down, "If you're going to go in, you might want to wear some mithril."


	8. Chapter 8

Iron Folk's Tavern wasn't what the average citizen of Dale would describe as a "lively" or "welcoming" place, or even a "safe place to be in the daytime." Its door was framed in heavy Dwarven carvings, geometrical chevrons that interlocked and arched at the top. The windows were made of the same thick green glass as wine bottles, no doubt – Legolas assumed – to give the interior a more cavern-like atmosphere. From the sidewalk, he could smell stale beer and spilt blood. Under normal circumstances, he might have taken a bracing breath before going inside, but he was terrified of deepening his acquaintance with the signature odor. So he just swung the door and walked in.

It was as dim and hazy as a hang-over inside, with stone tables and stone chairs – and a stonefaced barman standing at a stone bar. There wasn't an ounce of wood, nothing that felt _alive_ to Legolas. The hum of the constant forest had fallen silent. He didn't like it.

Most of the patrons were huddled over their drinks. A few were glaring at the unwelcome Elf. At one of the tables was a poker game, where a red-haired Dwarf was sitting with his back to the door. Legolas walked over and spun the Dwarf around.

"Alright, Gloinson—" He stopped himself when he found that he wasn't looking at Gimli at all. He was, in fact, looking at a very angry stranger with a scar over a milky eye.

"Don't hit that Elf," called Gimli from the other side of the room. "His face is all he has, because he keeps his brain in somebody else's arse."

"That doesn't even make sense." Legolas said, gently letting go of the angry Dwarf in his grasp and trying to hang on to some dignity, "Give me back my keys."

Some of the Dwarves, with nothing better to do but listen, snorted laughter and shook their heads.

Gimli took a seat at the bar and dangled the key ring from his finger, looking decidedly amused. Legolas walked over and snatched them away, looking decidedly _un_amused.

"You're so concerned about taking a small fish out of the pond," Legolas whispered angrily, "you're wasting all of my time, and stopping me from taking out the big fish. The guy who supplies to Shagrat and all of his ugly little friends."

"Oh," Gimli rolled his eyes, "What guy? Who is this big fish?"

"The Necromancer." Legolas said triumphantly.

"That's not a real person!" Gimli laughed, "First of all, he goes by a nickname instead of a real name which is – nobody actually does that. Second of all, every single piece of gossip I've heard about the guy says he came from Dol Guldur. What's in Dol Guldur? What would anybody _do_ there?"

"I imagine they'd spend their time manufacturing an enormous amount of narcotics, then head north to sell it on the streets of Dale. Just a wild stab in the dark."

"I'll give you a wild stab in the dark if you don't stop being such an arrogant fuckwad." Gimli scoffed.

Exasperated, Legolas slammed his briefcase onto the bar and opened it with a loud click. He pulled out two of the photos he'd shown Shagrat, the people who'd gotten in the way of the Necromancer.

"Put those away!" The bartender demanded, "This is a family establishment!"

"I'm so sorry," Legolas said without thinking, then paused. "This is a _tavern_!"

"Don't insult our culture," Gimli said, grabbing the photos out of the Elf's hand, "Why haven't I heard that these crime scenes were linked?"

"Probably because the Department of Justice thought that the EBI would be more useful than a crazy Dwarf who attacks his fellow officers."

"If there's anything happening on these streets, I have a right to know about it. I'm an Ambassador of Justice sent from the Halls of Erebor, for fuck's sake. You're just a… a… like, a little girl pretending to be a City Guard. You don't want to _discourage_ it, but you're also not going to call her when there's an actual siege."

"I'm going to ignore your completely unprofessional and discourteous remarks," Legolas narrowed his eyes, "And remind you that you are here to maintain goodwill between your people and the people of Dale. That's all. You don't magically get the clearance levels you need to look at everything the Justice Department knows, and you certainly don't get to look at EBI data."

Gimli nodded.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"What?" Legolas stepped backwards like someone was trying to make him drink poison.

"I'm sorry I've been so mean to you. It's just that my people have this thing about hating all of the Elves because of King Dumbass of the Shitwood, and it's not right to take it out on you." Gimli sighed, "Besides which, we all worked really hard to bring Dale back and it's still kind of shitty, and we're all very sensitive about that."

Legolas relaxed his shoulders and stepped forward.

"I accept your apology." He said, "But you need to understand that this is an important case with sensitive pieces all working in harmony. You can't just smash it with a hammer and call it a day."

"Yes. Absolutely. There are clearance levels for a reason, and I don't have clearance like you." Gimli nodded, "You're EBI. The Elven Bureau of Investigation. That makes you like the Spirit of the Law, like justice bathed in beautiful song and light."

"Er…"

"Your people were at the birth of order," Gimli went on, watching as a tipsy Dwarf with a grey beard stumbled by them, "Your forefathers probably saw the original scales of justice, and stood before their golden beauty and wept, then danced. Then made up a song about 'em."

"You've lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about your blessed people and how amazing you all are at solving crimes, with your corn silk hair and your cornflower eyes. And your green shirt that looks like it was made out of the outside of a corn husk." Slowly and without drawing attention to it, Gimli tripped the grey beard.

"Hey!" Shouted the old Dwarf angrily, grabbing Legolas by the wrists and twisting, "You think you're better'an me?!"

"Well, sir, I'm a sworn EBI agent—"

"You're a bag of dicks!"

While the argument raged on, Gimli calmly removed all of the Necromancer files from Legolas' briefcase and hid them inside his jacket.

"Please let go of my arms." Legolas was saying.

"No! I'm gonna break 'em!"

"I wouldn't recommend it. I'm trying to help this city mend itself."

"Yeah, well. I am, too." Said the grey beard, "I do the letters for the print block."

"That's very important. We all appreciate… having letters. For the… print block."

"Damn straight we do, Old Timer." Gimli said, "Leave him alone, he doesn't know where his own legs are because they're so freakishly long."

The Old Dwarf glared for a long, uncomfortable moment but let it go. He staged back into the gloom of the other side of the room.

"What exactly is the print block?" Legolas asked quietly.

"Oh well, we do a lot of paperwork around here, and we used to hire scribes to handwrite it all but that took forever. So now we carve it into the stone, roll ink on top of it and transfer it to the paper. It's useful."

"Seems like it would lack the charm of a handwritten document."

"Yeah, well, that's the kind of things Elves say when they don't think up a good idea first." Gimli nodded, "But listen, all of Dale – and probably Esgaroth – thanks you for your service. You're doing the hard work. You're, uh, keeping it classy. That shit matters."

Legolas nodded, wished everyone in the tavern a good day, and stepped back into the amber light of the streets.

Gimli shook his head once the Elf was gone. He was pretty sure he'd just met the most gullible dumbass in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

Frodo Baggins was an unofficial Unofficial Dwarf. His uncle, Bilbo Baggins, had been the real Unofficial Dwarf in the family, but certain courtesies had been passed down the line. This was why Gimli felt a little guilty about Frodo being imprisoned in the darkness of Erebor. It wasn't as bad as being in the Dale lock-up, despite the gloomier name, and the little hobbit had lots of visitors. Bilbo went by whenever he was in the neighborhood, which was often, and at least one member of the old Company checked on him during the week. Besides which, the inside of the mountain didn't have that weird smell. So there was that.

Still, looking into those big blue eyes that always seemed like they had bruises underneath them, and seeing the kid trying not to fidget in his chair – Gimli felt _bad_. Even though he knew he shouldn't.

"Hey-o, laddie!" He said to Frodo with a smile, "I brought you a present."

He plunked a brown paper bag onto the table and watched as Frodo slowly opened it and peeked inside. That was another good thing about Erebor, as long as the guards gave it the okay, you could bring outside food to prisoners.

"Seed cakes!" Frodo beamed, "Real seed cakes!"

"Thought that might cheer you up."

"And I got letters from Sam and Pippin this week. They can't wait for me to get back to the Shire. Of course, Bilbo thinks it would be a good idea if I stayed with him for a little while. And he doesn't want to leave right away."

"That's probably for the best." Gimli nodded.

The King Under the Mountain had agreed to release Frodo, with no other parole stipulations, if he stayed in Bilbo's custody after serving a light sentence. In the long run, it would be in everyone's best interests. But in the short-run, a lot of people were pissed off that Frodo had been arrested in the first place. They were minor drug charges, just a pocket full of gold dust here and there, but it would only be a matter of time before it got worse.

Bilbo knew.

The King knew.

And Gimli knew.

They'd each faced demons of their own.

"You ever hear of a dealer called the Necromancer?" Gimli asked.

Frodo bit into one of the cakes and shook his head.

"No. I've never heard of him." He looked away while he chewed.

"Hobbits are damn courageous little creatures, and damn clever, too. But I've only met one of them who was ever any good at lying, and you're not him."

"I—I've heard the name, but it's just a street corner legend. I don't even know if he's real."

"He's real," Gimli nodded, "And I want to make sure he gets what's coming to him."

Frodo smiled.

"Are you going to storm through the streets of Dale and take down the most powerful drug lord in the world?"

"Aye. I just might."

* * *

"Danville!" Legolas called, striding across the offices of the Justice Department and stopping at the desk that belonged to Agent Dernhelm, "I need some help. Pull up all the information your department has on a low-level dealer called Grima. Might be an Orc. Doesn't have any eyebrows. Then grab a breastplate and a weapon, and come with me to interrogate him."

"No." Dernhelm said, with that very definite tone of voice that lets everyone know that the person saying 'no' means to say it and will not change their mind.

"I'm sorry?" Legolas asked.

She stood up, grabbed her suit jacket off the back of her chair and slid her arms through the sleeves.

"I'll show you where the file is, but I'm not coming with you for the interrogation." She explained, "You'll be fine by yourself. Watch for knives. Wear a vest. Mithril if you've got it."

Legolas followed her over to the coffee room, where she poured herself a large cup.

"That isn't protocol," he said, "I'm required to have a second field agent with me when I'm confronting a suspect. It's in the manual."

Dernhelm took a long swig of coffee and pulled a face.

"You know, they shot the dragon right over the lake. About sixty years ago, now. Great for the economy, but they just left the corpse to rot in the shallows," she said, "I swear you can still taste it in the water. Would you like a cup?"

"I'm fine." He winced.

She pointed towards the elevators.

"Archives are this way."

The top floor of the Justice Building was beautiful. It was full of windows that showed blue sky and jade green flags, and the red tile roofs of the buildings around it. There was a coolness to it, like a summer breeze. And in six wide columns, each stretching the length of the whole floor, were filing cabinets. Chunky, grey and overwhelming. In front of them, an old man slept soundly at a wooden desk with a sign-in book and a quill. Dernhelm scrawled her name, the date and the time in the book, leaving the information about the files taken blank.

"You really shouldn't keep paperwork up high," Legolas whispered, not wanting to wake the old man, "Most precincts and offices have their archives in the basement."

"It's a hold-over from when the department was based in Esgaroth," Dernhelm answered at normal volume. "Flooding was a big issue."

Confidently, she navigated the labels on the cabinets, and pulled out a large drawer that creaked so wretchedly, Legolas could feel it in his teeth. The sleeping old man gave a sudden snore, but otherwise didn't seem to notice. Dernhelm leafed through the tops of the cream-colored file folders, looking for the one that said 'Wormtongue' on it. When she found it, she lifted it out like it was diseased and practically flung it at Legolas.

"Here. That's all you'll ever want to know," she shuddered. "Do me a favor? If you need to bring him in, take him directly to the lock-up. Don't bring him to this office for processing, okay? And write down the file number in the book if you need to take that with you."

"I'd feel better if you accompanied me." Legolas said, "You have more experience with these... mean streets."

"Undoubtedly." Dernhelm nodded, "But Grima Wormtongue is a creepy little douchebag, and our department has a rule about female officers interacting with him. It's a new rule that I just made up, but I'm sure the other women will be grateful. The last time we brought him in – look, just watch his hands. And wash yours when you're done talking to him."


	10. Chapter 10

It was just after dawn when Gimli got into his car. He threw the file he'd stolen from the EBI agent onto his passenger seat and decided to put on his gloves. Dale got cold in the mornings, even when the weather was good. He was tired, short-tempered and grumpy. Driving over the bridge and heading into Erebor, then getting back into the city, then trying to get some dinner and wrap his head around the Necromancer case, then trying to get some sleep while the captain kept leaving accusatory messages on his answering machine. He was exhausted.

It didn't improve matters when he saw a familiar silver-white sedan pull into the space behind him.

He rolled down his window and stuck his head out. Legolas was getting out of his car, and he looked angry.

"Are you stalking me?" Gimli called, "Because that's unsettling."

Legolas shushed him, looking around with suspicious eyes, and hurried over.

"I specifically told you to stay away from this case."

"So?"

"So what are you doing right next to one of the corners that Grima Wormtongue likes to sell drugs on?"

Gimli looked at the corner in question and nodded. Then he pointed to the apartment building he was parked alongside.

"I live here."

It was an old, narrow building. It still had the marks of dragon claws etched into the stone by the roof. Most of the windows had boards on them, to cover up where the glass was broken. Legolas chuckled softly. He was tired of falling for every trick Gimli tried to play on him, and he would not fall for this. He raised an eyebrow at the Dwarf and tilted his head to one side.

"You're hilarious. That's very funny," he said snidely. "But do you know what's not funny? Stealing a confidential EBI case file."

"I don't remember doing that. I think you must've just dropped it some place."

"It's on the seat right next to you."

"No. No it's not."

Legolas squared his shoulders and pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. He started scrolling through his contacts.

"I'm calling the Director. Of the EBI." He said, walking a few feet away for the sake of privacy.

"Oh aye? You go ahead, tattle-tits!" Gimli called after him.

It rang three times, and instead of answering with a more conventional greeting, Arwen said:

"This better be the phone call where you tell me that you've destroyed the Necromancer's base of power, he's in custody of the Dale Department of Justice or the Dale PD, and you're planning to return to Rivendell triumphant and better for this experience. Maybe with a small cask of jewels as thanks for your service."

Knowing that Gimli was trying to listen in, Legolas didn't feel he could respond to this statement directly, and so he said what he originally intended to say.

"I'm going to need authorization to suspend a member of the local authorities from this case."

"Is working with local authorities a problem for you, Greenleaf?" Arwen asked.

"It's not. It's just that this particular officer is a mentally unstable Dwarf, and you can see how that might do us more harm than good."

"Captain Brand informed me of your little scuffle with Detective Gloinson, and the captain assures me that Gloinson is a smart and capable officer. He helped rebuild Dale, brick by brick, as part of the Dwarven volunteer group. He knows that city, and that's an asset to your investigation." She sighed, "You need to show me that you can do this, that you can be cooperative and sociable in the name of the greater good. This is a test, Agent Greenleaf. You have to pass it, and pass it alone, or you will not get the promotion."

"Director Evenstar—"

"Work with the Dwarf." Arwen said sternly, right before hanging up.

Legolas strolled a little closer to the car, still talking into the phone and trying to save some face.

"No need to take someone's badge. That sounds a bit extreme. I'm sure I can work something out with him, he has good knowledge of the area and that's an asset. I'm going to try and smooth things out, I'd hate to see the poor fellow suspended. He doesn't seem to have much outside of his job. I'll keep you updated, Director Evenstar. Goodbye."

Legolas put his phone away, and stood in an awkward silence.

"Are you trying to stake-out Grima?" Gimli asked.

"You know that I am."

"Then you'd better get in." He pulled everything off the front seat and threw it sloppily into the back.

"Why would I—"

"Make it quick, you look like the Prince of the Cops standing out there. And, just so you know, your car's _probably_ going to be vandalized."

Begrudgingly, Legolas got in. It was a tight squeeze in terms of his height, and he was certain he was going to wind up with a neck cramp, until Gimli pulled a lever that lowered the seat. Legolas felt like he was sitting on the floor of a go-kart, but it was more comfortable and he could still see out of the windshield alright.

"My car already was vandalized," Legolas grumbled. "Somebody threw garbage into it."

"Oh no. That is awful."

"Greasy food wrappers and some kind of… _cake_. It was everywhere. It took me an hour to clean it up, and the smell's still not gone. It's in my nostrils. Even your car smells of it."

Gimli pulled around the block and parked along the inside of an alley full of shadows, and with a fine view of the corner in question, and shook with silent laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Dwarven humor." He pulled himself together, "Alright, so the file says that Grima sells here, but he doesn't. I think he lives in that shithole of a building right across from us, and they don't sell where they live in this town. Still, if you want to find him you probably picked the right place. You know what he looks like?"

"I have a tip on his appearance, yes."

"He's a creepy piece of shit."

"That seems to be the consensus."

They waited in a semi-awkward silence, watching people come and go along the street as the day went on. It was almost lunchtime when they saw two figures walk out of their target building. The first was a burly man dressed in worker's clothes and a pair of worn-down boots. The second was Grima Wormtongue, and all of the air around him turned vile as he walked through it.

"There he is!" Legolas pointed.

"Which one?" Gimli asked, just for fun.

"What do you mean _which one_?!"

"There are two guys. Which guy are we going after?" He started the car and slowly pulled out.

"That one! The one that is clearly Grima Wormtongue!"

"_Which one is clearly Grima Wormtongue_?!"

"The creepy piece of shit who ain't got no fucking eyebrows!" Legolas shouted.

Gimli chuckled.

"Alright, then. I'm warning you because I don't want you to be a whiny little dick about this: I'm going to hit him with the car."

* * *

_A/N: Hooray! Thanks everybody for all of the lovely reviews I've been getting, I'm sorry I've been so lazy about replying, it's the holidays and I've been in a food coma. The good news is that I intend to write this one until it's finished. The bad news is updates will be inconsistent for the next little while, because my birthday (which means my twin brother's birthday as well) and New Year's are coming up._


	11. Chapter 11

Grima Wormtongue was walking down the street with his shoulders hunched forward and his hands shoved into the pockets of his black, oversized coat. He didn't seem to be aware of the car that was slowly rolling along the street behind him, or the argument that had started inside of that car. If he'd had the slightest idea of what was being discussed, he would have been running for his life.

"It's illegal!" Legolas was saying for what felt like the millionth time.

"_We're_ the law." Gimli grumbled, still going very slowly and keeping a distance of about sixteen feet.

"Just pull up slowly and show him your badge. We only want to interview him—"

"You mean interrogate the shit out of him, right? Scare-him-so-bad-he-pisses-himself-on-the-sidewalk-and-begs-us-for-mercy is what you meant when you said _interview_, right?"

"That's too aggressive for an initial encounter with a potential informant. In this sort of a circumstance, we like to create a sense of genuine personal interest in the subject, which encourages them to open up to otherwise unfriendly figures. In this case, not only are we law enforcement, but we are an Elf and Dwarf – it'll be harder to establish a rapport."

"Do you have to use words like _rapport_?" Gimli groaned.

"Yes." Legolas nodded stiffly, "Hopefully, once there's a good _rapport_ between us, I'll be able to perform instant personality assessments using thematic apperception tests, and manipulate the conversation to suit our needs."

Gimli blinked his eyes like he was trying to stay awake.

"Alright, laddie. We'll try it your way," he said. "But you have to promise to stop explaining it. And if it doesn't work, we hit him over and over again with our fists until he tells us what we want to know. That's an old Dwarven trick for preliminary interviews with potential informants. You can't cut stone with a bowl of sugar."

He sped up the car just enough to be able to jackknife onto the sidewalk in front of Grima. He thought about accidentally clipping the suspect with one of the side mirrors, but decided not to risk another lecture from the Elf.

"Hey, shitface!" Gimli flashed his badge, "Guess who wants to talk?"

Grima Wormtongue's eyes widened and he shrank backwards from the car.

"Ignore him," Legolas said with a polite smile, "I'm Special Agent Legolas Greenleaf of the Elven Bureau of Investigation. Can I ask you a few questions?" He got out of the car, showed his own badge, and straightened his suit jacket.

"Oh…" Wormtongue said slowly, "Now isn't a good time. I'm on my way… to an appointment. Perhaps we can chat on another day?"

"How about we chat today?" Gimli slammed the car door behind him and strolled over, "That's the best time for me. I'm a busy fellow."

Wormtongue smiled nervously at the detective and nodded.

"I'm sure you have a very full schedule…"

"Just talk to the elf, you piece of shit. You're not going anywhere until you answer his dainty little questions, and you're going to be damn grateful about it because _I_ wanted to hit you with the fucking car."

"Establish a rapport," Legolas whispered, "Be friendly."

Realizing it didn't look good in terms of his being able to escape the conversation, Wormtongue nodded and said:

"I suppose I could spare a few moments for you gentlemen."

"Excellent." Legolas pulled out his notepad and his silver birch pen, "How long have you lived in this neighborhood?"

"Since I relocated to Dale."

"From Esgaroth?"

"From Rohan."

Something clicked in the Elf's mind. He thought about the Rohirrim agent at the Justice Department and her reluctance to help with this suspect, and he wondered. He tapped the pen against the notepad and struggled to come up with his next question.

"What do you do for a living?" He finally managed.

Gimli scoffed.

"Everybody knows what he does for a living."

"I'm an efficiency expert for small businesses."

"He's a pervert who sells drugs. Next question, Agent Greenleaf."

"Is he allowed to talk about me like that?" Wormtongue sneered, "I'm a decent citizen, answering your questions. Surely I have the right to go through my day with being verbally assaulted by so-called law enforcement?"

There were an awfully high number of sexual assaults on his file for a _decent citizen_.

Legolas flipped the notebook shut. He was going to try an unorthodox approach.

"Listen, we have enough on you to put you away for selling narcotics. I'm not going to lie. At the end of this conversation, we'll be arresting you for being in possession of however much gold dust, Mean Old Toby or Dunharrow powder we find in your left pocket. The one you're not taking your hand out of. And if we find any Ring on you—"

"That's your balls in a vice." Gimli nodded.

"So, how about a little quid pro quo? You tell us what we want to know, and instead of taking you straight to the lock-up, we'll take you up to the Department of Justice and make sure they process your arrest, since I'm a visiting agent. They have a lovely Rohirrim woman working there. Hair of spun gold and skin as pale as a pitcher of milk…"

"I know her." Wormtongue said, licking his lips and staring into the distance, "She won't speak with me."

"I can arrange it so that she'll have no choice but to speak with you." Legolas said in a soft, encouraging voice.

Gimli cleared his throat. "This isn't okay," he said sternly.

"She told me all about you," Legolas went on, "She's there right now. In a blue blouse, with gems shaped like white flowers in her ears, smelling of the sweet grass that grows in the meadows of her homeland."

"I am not okay with this!" Gimli announced.

"You'll take me to her?" Wormtongue asked greedily, reaching out and grabbing Legolas by the arm.

"_No_." Gimli pointed a finger like he was chastising a badly behaved dog, "_No we won't._"

"Yes," Legolas nodded. "But only if you tell me where the shipments of Ring are coming from. Who's dealing it, and who's bringing it in? I want the Necromancer."

"I can't give you the Necromancer, no. But I can give you someone almost as good! A wizard at a nightclub called the White Hand. He distributes. He promised me a seventy percent cut, but he's only been giving out sixty. His books are flawless, and I doubt you'll get anything on him. He is wise and daunting."

"Good." Legolas committed the details to memory, "Detective Gloinson will now search you."

They found Ring on him. Three five-ounce packages.

Gimli cuffed him and stuffed him into the backseat. It was then that, by chance, one of the beat cops strolled over and nodded at them.

"Hey," Gimli tossed the cop his keys, "Can you take this shitsucker in? I'll ride with the Elf."

"Sure." The cop caught the keys and went over to the driver's side, "D.O.J or lock-up?"

"Straight to lock-up." Legolas said.

"No!" Wormtongue wailed, "You said—"

"I lied."

They watched as the poor, unsuspecting officer pulled away in a car made for a Dwarf, with a lunatic in the backseat shrieking about promises.

"Any particular reason you wanted to take my car?" Legolas asked as they headed back up the block to where he was parked.

"Yeah, I want to swing by my apartment and wash my hands before we head in," Gimli shuddered, "They were in Grima's _pockets_."


	12. Chapter 12

"I'm sorry," Legolas said, watching Gimli pull out a ring of keys and unlock the door to the scarred building he'd pointed to earlier in the morning, "Do you _actually_ live here?"

"Well. You know, when I'm in Dale. My place in Erebor is much nicer, family apartment there, but the commute is terrible. So I got this for a bolt hole." Gimli shrugged, leading the way up the stairs and to his door. All of the numbers except for an upside-down seven had fallen off. "That was nice work with Grima. I was surprised. For a second I thought you were going to sell out Dernhelm, and then I would've had to accidentally shoot you and hide your body in a dumpster, and then frame Grima for it. That's hard to do on short notice."

"Do you know Agent… Dernhelm?" Legolas repeated Gimli to avoid embarrassing him, but he was inwardly confident that this was the wrong name.

"A little. She's a transfer like me. Out-of-towners tend to stick together. Unless one of them is an Elf." Gimli fought with the lock for a little while, jiggling the key and battering the door with his shoulder, "Good news is it'd be a pain in the arse to try and break in."

Legolas followed him inside and found himself surprised. The apartment was a masterpiece of subtle modern style, with coordinating geometric prints on all of the fabrics, glass tiles on the kitchen backsplash, jade marble around a small fireplace and stained-glass depictions of Dwarven kings in the windows.

"I didn't realize you were married." Legolas said.

"I'm not."

"Did you hire a decorator?"

"Who _hires a decorator_? I just bought some cushions…" Gimli grumbled, turning on the kitchen tap and starting to wash his hands.

"It's much nicer than I was expecting," Legolas cleared his throat, "Given the building it's in."

"Just because the building's a shithole doesn't mean that my piece of it has to be."

"You know, this may surprise you," Legolas replied sternly, "But I grew up in the nicest part of a… a… you know."

"A shithole?"

"Yes. So I do understand."

"Rivendell's not a shithole," Gimli laughed, "It's like a ladies' bed-and-breakfast where they serve lady-brunch to ladies. It's not even man-brunch. They don't even give you bacon. Worst brunches ever – Rivendell goes out of its way to ruin two meals at the same time by being too fancy about it. That's pretty much the _opposite_ of a shithole."

Legolas decided not to correct him. He'd probably read his transfer orders, and that was why Gimli thought that Legolas was from Rivendell. Not wanting to hear the Dwarf's no doubt colorful opinion on his actual homeland, Legolas changed the subject.

"Is this your family?" He pointed to a photograph of almost twenty Dwarves and a Hobbit that was hanging on the wall in a frame that looked to be made of real platinum.

"Some of them. That's me there, younger in that picture," Gimli pointed, "And that's my father, and my uncle there. Some of these are cousins, most of them are distant cousins. And that's Bilbo, in case you were wondering. Bilbo Baggins, a good friend to all of us."

"I've heard of him!" Legolas beamed.

"Aye, no doubt. He made quite an impression on Lord Elrond a few years back," Gimli nodded, "He was by here the other day. Brought me a sandwich – it had lettuce on it, so I threw it in the fridge. Would you like it?"

"No. Thank you." Legolas smiled politely and looked around the living room, "Where do you keep your weapons safe? If you don't mind me asking."

"I do mind, because that's a shady question."

"It's regulation in this jurisdiction to keep all police-issued weapons in a secure vault or safe when not on duty," Legolas quoted with his hands behind his back, "And I like to keep a mental catalogue of where things like that can be hidden. I normally deal with weapons traffickers in the Lórien area, you see. And I've never seen a Dwarven-made safe."

Gimli nodded and walked over to the wall right beside Legolas, and pressed his thumb to a piece of it. There were no visible seams, no buttons, no carvings or décor to cover up the location of the switch. Just a smooth wall. When it was pushed, a square piece of the wall beside it swung open soundlessly. It, too, had been seamlessly hidden.

"How…?" Legolas shook his head.

"Pretty nice, but not the best. Had to have it built into the existing walls of the apartment, and that's no good. Men use a lot of brickwork around here instead of slab stone." Gimli nodded and motioned to the stack of papers that filled the safe, "Here are the permits."

"There seem to be quite a few."

"I need quite a few," Gimli nodded, pressing another invisible switch, "I've got all this."

Almost half of the wall silently pushed out and away, revealing a weapon's closet that contained everything from ceremonial axes to modern crossbows and guns. There was even a hammer, and a few bombs.

"Have you ever had occasion to use any of these?" Legolas asked, wide-eyed.

"Some of 'em," Gimli said proudly. "But I'd love the chance to use one or two more."

* * *

_A/N: Just a short chapter today. Happy New Year!_


	13. Chapter 13

When Gimli walked into the war room in the Department of Justice building, he found Agent Dernhelm sorting through a stack of files almost as tall as a Hobbit, and Legolas pinning notes to a cork wall.

"Well, my dear," Gimli said happily to Dernhelm, "Did you hear about Grima?"

"I heard about Grima, and I heard about how you got him to talk." Dernhelm replied, very sternly, glaring over her shoulder at Legolas, "And the only thing about it that isn't pissing me off is the fact that you found Ring on him, which is a substance known to be entirely lethal. So, if I call in some favors, I can get him extradited back to Edoras – where the punishment for attempted murder is being pulled apart by horses."

"I've heard of that," Legolas nodded without looking away from his board, "It's four horses, isn't it?"

"That's for murder. Attempted murder is just two horses."

"Bet that makes people think twice about speaking ill of a Dwarven execution," Gimli chuckled, "A good clean cut sounds _very_ civilized."

"I'm not going to debate varieties of capital punishment with you, but being pulled apart by horses has its place. And a good judge knows where that place is."

"Fair enough." Gimli nodded, pouring himself a cup of dead-dragon-flavored coffee, "What did you get on the wizard at the White Hand?"

Dernhelm patted the whole stack of files in front of her, and he groaned.

"_All_ of those?"

Legolas strolled over and leaned against the wall beside them. He nodded knowingly at the stack of papers. "He's very old, and he's Istari," he explained. "We probably don't have much on him at all."

Dernhelm sighed. "It's disappointing, but it's true. We have suspicions that he's tied to a few things. Drugs obviously. Smuggling. One of the large prostitution rings. Kidnapping people and selling them to Easterlings. He's not pleasant."

"So why isn't his arse rotting in wizard-prison?" Gimli asked.

"Anyone who can inform on him… _disappears_ pretty quickly."

"Surely he can't ship them east without someone noticing?" Legolas said.

"He can't," Dernhelm shook her head, "we think he gets rid of them the old fashioned way. He kills them, and then to hide the corpse, he feeds it to the Orcs that work for him."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Gimli put his coffee down with no plans to pick it back up any time soon. Legolas stared intensely at a spot on the floor, and once or twice it seemed like he might say something, but he didn't. Finally, Dernhelm said:

"My brother and I used to play a game called 'Let's Ignore that Last Bit!'."

"Sounds like fun." Gimli nodded.

"I'm in." Legolas agreed.

"Okay," Dernhelm sighed with relief, "Your man's part owner of the White Hand, so he's there most nights but not usually on the floor. There's also this."

She pulled out a file of photographs, each showing a very tall man with snow white hair talking on a cell phone at various locations.

Gimli gave a low whistle. "Chatty bugger, isn't he?"

"Looks like it. We've been watching him for about a year, just on general suspicion. The boys down in surveillance tell me that they haven't been able to tap his cell. He gets a new pre-paid every week, by the time they figure out the number it's already been burned."

"Burned just means he threw the phone out." Legolas half-whispered to Gimli.

"Oddly enough, I'm familiar with our profession's jargon, Ranger Know-it-All."

"I'm not a Ranger." Legolas replied.

"You're not a fucking Princess either, but everybody calls you that, too."

Dernhelm snorted back a laugh. "What I can do is try and get a court-order to bug the phone, but I don't know _how_ you'll bug it."

"That's our problem," Legolas nodded, "One more thing, Agent. What name does this wizard go by in these parts?"

"Saruman of Many Colors."

Gimli burst into laughter.

* * *

Ten hours later, sitting in the white-silver car with Legolas, he was still laughing. Just in little bursts of chuckles every now and then, but his cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling all day.

"Aren't you over it?" Legolas sighed.

"Like a rainbow!" Gimli giggled and cleared his throat, "Sorry. Sorry."

"So, what do you know about this club?"

"Not much. PD's been called in a few times when there were brawls, aggressive drunks, that kind of thing – holy shit, do you think he picked that himself? Do you think one day he just started telling people to call him Saruman of Many Colors? Because if that's the case, we're dealing with a lunatic and we should have brought more guns."

Legolas ignored the last part.

"What sort of clientele?" He asked.

"Douchebags. Pretty much exclusively," Gimli nodded to the line of people that stretched around the building and down the corner, "See that lass there?"

He was nodding at a pretty young woman in a glittering short-skirt.

"The one holding the trash bag?" Legolas asked.

"Aye, but that's no trash bag. That's leather worked to look like it's a trash bag, and she paid enough gold to buy a sturdy Dwarven-made chair and table set for that. Just so she could look like she was walking around with a sack of garbage. Fucking idiots."

"They're bored. And wealthy. And mortal," Legolas shrugged. "Of course they act like idiots, there's nothing else for them to _do_."

"Leave to an Elf to be so racist." Gimli shook his head, "I know plenty of bored wealthy Men who don't act like that. Your problem is that you're narrow-minded, just like the rest of your kind."

Lightning could have crackled in the air between them and nobody would have thought it was strange.

"You don't respect me." Legolas said very quietly, watching the entrance to the White Hand and the street around it.

"I just met you," Gimli said in the tone of voice he used when children were disappointed about their birthday gifts, "There's nothing to respect yet. You seem like you're pretty good at being an Elf, and you brought in Grima okay, but in the grand scheme of respect, what does that mean to me? Dwarves don't just respect things because they're not as bad as they could be, we respect things that are… worthy of respect. It takes time."

Legolas thought for a minute. He was fairly certain that what Gimli had said made no sense, and that it had all been made up on the spot. But, if Dwarves did in fact need some token of greatness in order to be civil, then Legolas had quite an ace up his sleeve.

"I brought in that serial killer in Bree," he said, very casually, "The one who'd killed thirty-seven women over a span of ten years. They said he was a ghost. They said it was some dark and restless spirit of a long-dead king buried in the mounds, pulling travelers off the road. But he was just a man, and I caught him."

"Yeah. I read about that case. Didn't seem right."

Legolas balked and stared at Gimli.

"_What_ didn't seem right?"

"The suspect you guys brought in. I thought he was innocent." Gimli shrugged, "Just going off the articles."

"I can assure you that he was _not_ innocent. I had to go in his house and I still have nightmares about some of the things that were in there, so just… stop talking. Don't talk about it. I changed my mind, I don't want to talk about Bree with you," his hands tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. "Ever."

Gimli took a deep breath.

"What do I know about it?" He grumbled.

"There he is." Legolas nodded to a long white car that had pulled up in front of the club. Two enormous Orcs in shark skin suits stepped out and looked around, like they were checking for something. One of them seemed curious about Legolas and Gimli. "Quick, make it look like we're arguing."

"Your stupid fucking people should have helped us when Smaug sacked our whole fucking city! But your dickbag king just tossed his hair and rode away on his fucking elk! What the fuck was _that_?! That's not good diplomacy! And all the discounts in the world aren't going to make up for it, so consider my company's business GONE!"

Legolas stared at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

"Is he still looking?" Gimli asked under his breath.

"I have no idea." Legolas shook his head in a daze, "Why did you shout those horrible things?"

"You said to make it look like a fight, and that's what Elves and Dwarves fight about around here."

He looked over to the club. The Orcs had decided to ignore them, and were leading Saruman inside.

"Huh." Gimli said, "He's just wearing white. I mean, he was wearing white in the photos, but I thought that was just what he did for daywear. I figured at night, he'd look like a fucking mood ring. So where's this _Many Colors_ shit coming from?"

Legolas still appeared to be stunned.

"Wake up," Gimli snapped his fingers in front of the Elf's eyes, "Time to go catch us one of the big fish."


	14. Chapter 14

"This is the worst plan ever to be formed in this Age." Legolas said, with great conviction, looking at the contents of the duffle bag in the trunk. They were parked in a dark alley across the street from the club, getting ready for their sting.

"Look, it was the only way I could think of to get in. They don't let grumpy-arse Dwarves and Elves that are obviously cops into that place…" Gimli argued, pulling out the dry cleaning bag that had his suit in it. It was his best suit. He wore it to funerals, weddings and coronations, and he figured if he rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, undid too many buttons on the shirt and wore two gold chains, he'd look like a big spender. He'd also gone to the trouble of diffusing his curls and putting golden toggles in his moustache before the stake-out. The Elf hadn't even noticed.

"And you think they'll be more amenable to a… transvestite?" Legolas raised an eyebrow. Before him were a set of women's clothes, a make-up kit and some bits and pieces of things he didn't recognize.

"They won't think you're a transvestite when we're finished making you over. You'll look good," Gimli shrugged, "I don't know how you do as an Elf, but as a human woman, you're an eight."

"I really think we should just go in as we are."

"Right. And they'll let us in because they know we're the law, and everything will be on the level and everyone will be cooperative, but we won't get anywhere near Saruman's phone – or if we do, they'll burn it right away and get him a new one." Gimli hid behind the side of the car and started to get changed, "But they'll let in anyone, even a mean-looking and ugly little arsehole like me, if they look like they're on business. So. I am an entrepreneur of dubious morality, and you are my _human _lady friend."

"And why didn't you ask Agent Dernhelm to help us with this?" Legolas shook his head, aghast.

"I did ask. She gave me her sexiest clothes for you to wear." Gimli shrugged, "Our paperwork says that we're allowed to assist the EBI in tapping Saruman of Many Color's personal telephone lines. That could blow up in our faces in court if we don't make sure that the EBI does as much of this as possible, and out here the EBI means you. Look, laddie, I know you think that this is me hazing you or something, but it was genuinely the best idea I could come up with. I don't find this shit funny. After this is all done, we're going to make a solemn oath never to speak of this night to anyone. And I for one will be doing my level best to burn it out of my memory with alcohol."

Legolas ran his hands over his face and through his hair. There was really no place for argument. It was his fault for trusting Gimli to come up with their infiltration plan, and now he had no choice but to go through with it. He'd never thought that there would be a time when he'd miss storming into a place with Elrohir and accidentally destroying half the evidence, but that seemed like happy nostalgia to him now that he was faced with undercover work.

"Fine," he sighed.

"Good. Start with the hair and make-up, I suppose. I can help if you want."

"No. Don't help."

Legolas applied lipstick and eyeshadow in the way he'd seen human women wear it for an evening look. Inwardly, he cringed at the textures of the powders and creams as he put them on. He knew that Elven women had their own beauty secrets, but they were better at keeping them… secret. When he was finished with his face, and his features looked strangely like his own but strangely like someone else's, he undid his braids so that he could cover the tops of his ears with his hair.

"That's no good," Gimli shook his head, "It's too smooth. Only Elves have hair like that. Here." He handed Legolas a canister of hairspray from the duffle bag, "Spray it all in, then scrunch your hair up."

Legolas flipped his head over and sprayed along the bottom of his scalp. Then he grabbed handfuls of his hair and bunched them into curls.

"Scrunchier!" Gimli ordered, "You're not scrunching hard enough. Let me do it."

"No thank you, I've got it!" Legolas snapped, "I don't want it to look like a rat's nest. It just has to be textured." He continued to scrunch.

When he finished, his hair had made a miraculous transformation from pristine Elven elegance, to slightly tacky beach waves.

"Alright," Gimli nodded, going to the trunk and pulling out a pair of scissors, "Come over here and kneel down."

"What? No!" Legolas stepped back, "What for?"

"I've got to give you a fringe. Human women always have a fringe." He snipped the scissors in the air a couple of times.

"No they don't," Legolas shook his head emphatically, "I've seen lots who don't have fringes."

"Don't be a baby. It'll just be a few snips, and it'll all grow back. Given time."

"No. I'm going along with your _dreadful_ plan that makes me look and feel like a fool. I am wearing this disguise and I am going to do my best to live up to this disguise, but you are not cutting my hair and that is final. Now hand me that skirt."

When Legolas was finished dressing, he looked at his reflection in the car window and made a disappointed little noise.

"She said they were her raciest party clothes," Gimli explained, "and now I'm sad about Agent Dernhelm's social life."

"This won't work." Legolas shook his head, "Give me the scissors."

"You can't cut those up! They don't belong to us!"

"I'll buy her a new… sensible pencil skirt. Look, I've come this far. If the clothes don't work, then none of it works. _Give me the scissors_."

A few well-placed snips later, and the pair was ready to go. Legolas gathered every ounce of remaining dignity he possessed, and began walking towards the entrance.

"Walk sexier!" Gimli whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Legolas made an attempt at following the instruction.

"I said 'walk sexier', not 'frolic down the pavement!'"

"How is a _walk_ supposed to be sexually provocative?" He hissed back.

Gimli gave him a strange look, and then shook his head.

"Well. Now it's not just Agent Dernhelm's social life that I'm sad about."

When they got to the door, Gimli stood there and looked at the bouncer with an expression of expectation and disdain. The Orc looked them up and down, then nodded and unclipped the velvet rope.

He winked at Legolas as they went inside.


	15. Chapter 15

The White Hand was a bass-pounding, poorly lit retreat of glowing alcoholic beverages and people making out in dark corners. There were Orcs on all of the important doors, and eyes on all of the important people. Gimli headed straight for the bar.

"Listen, because this is important," he said in a voice so low, it almost got swallowed up by the music, "If anybody asks, I am from the _Iron Hills_. Not Erebor. Only smugglers come out of Erebor, but pimps come in from the Iron Hills all of the time."

Legolas looked displeased.

"_Pimps_?"

"Right. Now, let's hear your lady-voice."

Legolas cleared his throat. "How this?" He asked in his highest pitch, adding a touch of sultriness.

"Um…" Gimli looked disturbed, "Don't speak, alright? Best if you never, ever make those noises again. Because you sounded like a demon spider laying a curse."

"I was trying to sound like a party girl."

"Well. You know. This was short notice and you're not used to this sort of thing, so good try. Good try." Gimli was nodding supportively when a white flash caught his eye.

On a balcony overlooking the dance floor stood Saruman, watching the revelers with icy detachment. His eyes passed over Legolas and Gimli without noticing them, and a few seconds later, he turned around and went back into the door he'd come out of.

"A main office." Legolas said.

"Right. Let's go. Do you have the bug?"

"Of course."

"Good. Once we're in there, follow my lead and look for openings. And don't speak. Really. Don't."

They grooved their way across the dance floor, weaving through the crowd with their smooth moves, making their way to the stairs that led up towards the balcony. A very humorless looking Orc was standing there watching them.

"I need to talk to Saruman." Gimli said, "It's about business."

"What kind of business?" The Orc asked.

"That's between me and him. If you need permission, just tell him a mean little pimp from the Iron Hills wants to talk."

The Orc pulled out a cellphone and sent a text. It was less than a minute before he got a reply.

"Go up." He said.

Saruman's office was pristine, with a white desk, white chair, white walls and white décor. Gimli resisted the urge to loudly demand where all the colors were. The only things in the room that weren't white were a collection of bright green cocktails, sitting on the corner of the desk. They probably belonged to the Orcs loitering at the balcony exit. Saruman himself was sitting behind the desk, with his fingers steepled and his manner calm, but impatient.

"What do you want?" The wizard asked in a deep baritone voice.

"I want to give you an opportunity," Gimli answered, "I run a high-end escort service in the Hills, and I've been very successful with it. I want to branch out into Dale, but I'd like to work with someone who already has a finger in the pie and can help with start-up. I'm no slouch and no runner, and my girls are clean." He nodded at Legolas.

"And are all of your 'girls' Elven men in drag?" Saruman asked dryly.

_Run Away!_ Screamed Gimli's internal voice, but he pressed on. If they blew this, they'd never have another shot.

"It's a small market, but the clients are extremely loyal and they pay well."

"I'm certain that they do, but I don't like to dabble in niche markets. And," Saruman smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "if I may make a suggestion? I don't think Dale would be a good fit for you. Better stay home. Or if you must expand, expand south."

Gimli nodded.

"Well," he said, walking right up to the desk. "Thanks for the advice."

He reached out like he was going to shake hands, and knocked the cocktails onto Saruman. A splash of neon clung to his hair and suit, and he stood up in a rage. The glasses crashed to the ground.

"You bumbling fool!" He cursed at Gimli, and the Orcs tripped over one another looking for paper towels. "You wretched imbecile!"

Swift as the wind, Legolas grabbed the phone off of the desk. The Orcs were now dabbing Saruman, who was – in between shouting insults at Gimli – trying to bat them away. Legolas slid the back off of the phone, slipped in the bug, and put it back _exactly_ where he'd seen it. With his Elven reflexes, the whole maneuver took him less than ten seconds.

"Get out!" Saruman boomed, "Get out before I make an Uruk-hai's dinner of you!"

"Sorry again!" Gimli called over his shoulder as they hurried through the office door, "Really hope that stuff doesn't stain!"

They bolted out of the club, and ran across the street to the car. They both slammed their doors.

"Holy shit that went poorly!" Gimli panted, out-of-breath from panic, "That was, like, the worst case scenario in there. Holy fucking crap. Did you get the bug in there when I spilled on him? Please say yes, because I could have died. Spilling shitty cocktails on a wizard. That's probably the lamest way to get yourself killed."

"I got the bug in," Legolas nodded, "It was a pretty good distraction."

"No. It was a shitty distraction. He saw right through your disguise! I'm pissed!" Gimli slammed his hand against the top of the steering wheel then looked down at his feet. They didn't reach the pedals. "I forgot this was your car. You need to drive."

Legolas was tying his scrunched up hair into a ponytail. He didn't like the feel of the hairspray when it touched his face. He nodded and they got out to switch seats.

"I'm going to put on my trousers."

"Alright, but make it quick. I don't to be here if he sends the fucking goon squad after us because they can find a bleach pen."

Legolas grabbed his slacks off the back seat and changed into them, then climbed behind the wheel to drive home. He was really hoping that there would never be a day when his father learned about this incident. It was hard enough having to explain being an agent without having to explain undercover prostitute drag.

"I really want that promotion." He reminded himself under his breath as he pulled out of the alley.

Neither he nor Gimli saw the dark brown van that turned on its headlights and followed them into the night.


	16. Chapter 16

"You know what? I hope that it does stain," Gimli was saying as they drove down the emptied out streets, "I hope it ruins his stupid white suit and won't come out of his stupid white hair. I really wish we could have arrested him."

"We got the bug in," Legolas replied, "which puts us one step closer to busting his butt."

Gimli sighed.

"Don't try to talk cool. You can't do it."

"You're an extremely critical person, do you—"

"So are you!"

"No. I'm not, I—" Legolas tried to defend himself and glanced in the rearview mirror. He frowned.

"You just criticized me for criticizing you. You're not self-aware at all."

Suddenly, Legolas was turning sharply down a side street, his face intense and his eyes darting back and forth between the mirror and the road.

"See that van?" He said, "It's following us."

"Okay, here's what we do," Gimli nodded. "Slam on the brakes."

Legolas shook his head. "I was the top precision driver in my jurisdiction. I once beat Lord Celeborn in a street race."

"That sounds like an awesome story!" Gimli smacked him in the shoulder, "Why don't you fucking introduce yourself with that shit?! _Hello, I'm Special Agent Greentea. I may look like an enchanted statue brought to life through Elven magic, but I've actually done some pretty cool shit. For example,_ I once beat Lord CELEBORN IN A FUCKING _STREET RACE_!"

"It's Greenleaf." Legolas swerved down another side street, but the van was in solid pursuit.

"Dernhelm said to call you Greentea." Gimli watched Legolas swerve again, "No! Don't go down this one!"

But Legolas was watching the mirror and trying to avoid the tail. The Brown van disappeared not too long after, and he smiled as he made his last turn.

"See?" He said proudly.

Behind them, the van turned another corner and continued on behind them.

"You just drove us in a figure eight right by them, shithead. You should listen to me when I'm giving you traffic instructions. The Dwarves of Erebor fucking invented traffic in Dale."

"Why would streets do that?!" Legolas demanded.

"Who the fuck knows? It's not a great place. Everybody admits that." Gimli shook his head, "Slam the brakes."

"No, I can get away."

"Just slam the brakes."

"Give me directions and I'll—"

"SLAM THE BRAKES, LEGOLAS!"

The white-silver sedan screeched to a sudden halt, causing the van to rear-end them. In a split-second, Legolas and Gimli were out of their seats and aiming their weapons at the driver of the van and his partner.

"EBI! Put down your staves and back away!"

"What the fuck are you guys supposed to be?" Gimli shouted, before he had time to stop himself.

The driver of the van was a ragged, wide-eyed man in brown clothes with a brown hunting cap on his head. He was pointing an elaborate walking stick with a crystal top at them. On the other side of the van was his accomplice, dressed in finely tailored blue leather and aiming his own staff.

"Istari Affairs! Lower your firearms!"

"Oh whoops." Legolas quietly and lowered his gun.

Gimli kept his pointed at the man in blue, but whispered to the Elf: "What exactly does 'oh whoops' mean in this context."

"Put your gun down. These are the wizard-cops. They put asses in wizard-jail, to use your own turn of phrase."

"No fucking way, laddie. The one in brown looks as high as a fucking kite. I don't trust them. They're probably on Saruman's take. Wizards stick together."

"Actually, they don't. They very often go their own ways and refuse to speak to each other for centuries." Legolas sighed, "Put your gun down."

"I do not trust that guy." Gimli shook his head, but lowered his gun, "I don't trust him. He's probably balls-deep in bribes. And when I say _bribes_, I mean _drugs_."

Legolas ignored him and went over to the Istari. "I'm sorry about all of this, I thought you were sent by Saruman."

"Radagast the Brown," the officer introduced himself. "This is Pallando the Blue. And this is Sylvester."

He pulled a hedgehog out of his pocket.

"Who the fuck brings a hedgehog to work?" Gimli said, exasperated.

Radagast bristled, holding his friend in his hands, "I'll have you know that Sylvester has some of the keenest senses for finding the presence of dark magic in all the world. He's an official officer of IA, and don't you forget it."

"This guy is high. That's all that's going on here."

"Shut up, Gimli." Legolas hissed through clenched teeth.

"We have reason to believe that Saruman has been overtaken by dark forces and is working to…" Radagast carefully lowered his voice, "assist the rise of the Mordor economy by aiding the Necromancer. We've been monitoring his activity for two months, and I must say you haven't done us any favors by what you did in there tonight."

Legolas smiled politely.

"I think there's been some miscommunication," he said. "I'm Special Agent Greenleaf of the Elven Bureau of Investigations. We were called in because the Necromancer has been selling a product known as Ring. It's lethal to all users, and he's been killing anyone who isn't on his payroll and won't sell the new stuff. This is Detective Gloinson of Dale PD, who is assisting me with local geography. Neither he nor I were aware that this case was linked to a wizard until quite recently. I'm sure all of this can be cleared up."

"Yes," said the one in Blue. "We can clear it up now. You are not welcome near this case. We have set up surveillance beyond your understanding. Our informants can be the insects on the wall. We can go undetected, you cannot. And the last thing we want is for you to interfere."

"It's alright," Radagast nodded cheerfully, "We're really quite good at this sort of thing!"

He motioned to the inside of the van, where Legolas and Gimli found several large screens projecting images of the activity inside the White Hand and Saruman's office. On one of the screens, Saruman was talking to a figure that was blocked from view. When the conversation was over, he moved aside and Gimli saw a familiar young face. Dark curly hair, large blue eyes. Frodo Baggins.

Gimli hd forgotten that Frodo was getting out of jail that afternoon.

"Shit." He said, "Sorry, wizard-cops. We didn't mean to fuck up your little… wizard-justice thing." Shaking his head, he made his way back to the car.

"Sorry again," Legolas waved, following after him, "Didn't know this was an Istari case!"

He jumped into the driver's seat and pulled away. There was a loud crunch as his car freed itself from the van and he cringed at the sound. Director Evenstar was not going to like the bill she got from the rental place.


	17. Chapter 17

Gimli didn't talk while Legolas drove him back to his apartment. He stared out the window and watched the city banners fluttering in the breeze.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" Legolas asked as they pulled up to the apartment building.

"No."

"Because I could tell that you saw something you didn't like back there."

"Yeah, I saw a fucking hedgehog pulling rank on us."

"And you also saw the nephew of Bilbo Baggins in the White Hand, talking with a known narcotics dealer." Legolas stopped the car.

Gimli glared at him. "And what would you know about Frodo Baggins?"

Legolas shrugged.

"Not much. I know that he's been imprisoned in Erebor for possession. I know that you spoke on his behalf several times at his hearings and trials. It was in your file."

"You read my file." Gimli nodded, his eyes like cold steel.

"I wanted to know who I was working with," Legolas said. "And I want to know what your Halfling friend said to Saruman, or – even better – what Saruman said to him. Do you know where he's staying?"

"At the palace of the King Under the Mountain. With my family."

"Ah."

"We can go tomorrow if you'd like." Gimli shrugged, "Only remember that you're an Elf, and there are a few people who aren't too pleased about how I handled the incident with Frodo. I was the one who arrested him, you know."

"I know. That was in your file as well."

"Well, there were some who thought that was a bit of a harsh thing to do, him just being a Hobbit and all. But I did it for his own good. He was using, and it was getting worse. I wanted him in a safe place, somewhere clean."

Legolas shook his head. "Actually, most studies find that prisoners are incredibly likely to start using harder drugs during their incarceration. I think there's an eighty-nine or ninety percentage rate of inmates who became addicted during their sentences."

"You are such a dick," Gimli grumbled as he got out of the car, "I hate you." The door slammed shut behind him with enough force to shake the seats.

Legolas sat by himself with his hands on the wheel for a little while.

"Probably shouldn't have told him those statistics." He decided, and drove himself home.

* * *

Legolas awoke the next morning to a scraping and scuffling noise coming from his kitchen. This was odd, because he lived alone and had no pets. Quietly, he climbed out of bed, grabbed his weapon from the bedroom safe, and approached. He sighed with a mixture of relief and frustration when he found Gimli rummaging through his fridge in the half-light of early morning.

"Damn it," Legolas said, "I could have shot you!"

Gimli looked up and over at him, then down at the gun. "The safety's on."

"That's not the point! The point is it could have been off, and you would have been dead!" Legolas took a deep breath, "Why did you break into my apartment?"

"We've got to get going, and it turns out that I don't have your phone number. Why are there so many things with leaves in your fridge? I thought Elves worshipped plants or something. Seems kind of creepy for you to eat them."

"_Trees_. Not lettuces. _Trees_. And we don't worship them. We just have a connection with them. You wouldn't understand."

"Nope. Sounds crazy as balls to me," Gimli shut the fridge, "I was going to make breakfast when I got here. I presumed you'd have bacon. Guess we'll get something on the road. Come on, let's hit it."

Legolas rolled his eyes. "Just let me change first."

Gimli looked at the silver tunic and billowy trousers that the Elf was wearing.

"What's wrong with that?"

"These are my pyjamas."

"No shit," Gimli shook his head, "Who can tell with Elven clothes? Go on, then. Go get your top hat or your fucking circlet of braided silver or whatever. I'll be in the car."

When Legolas was dressed and ready to go, he found Gimli waiting in his beater with the engine running. The passenger seat had already been lowered to accommodate the Elf's height. He inwardly groaned. They were going to a Dwarven settlement, so it made sense, and his own car look like an oliphant had stepped on the trunk. He got in and threw his briefcase in the back.

"Do you like those little sausage sandwiches with the egg whites on them? Those are kind of dainty," Gimli pulled out into morning traffic, "We can get you one of those."

"Is there anywhere that does shakes? I usually like a green shake in the morning."

"Oh, aye! I know the best place!"

When they arrived at the fast food restaurant, Legolas recognized the sign at once. His eyes narrowed at Gimli.

"You threw that garbage into my car. Didn't you?"

Gimli cleared his throat. "What garbage? When was this? I didn't know you had a car! Oh look, the line-up's nice and short! We'll be through in a jiffy!"

"Hmm."

"In fairness, you were being the world's biggest arsehole that day. And I did not yet know that you're _incredibly_ bad at first impressions and also socially disabled. I would likely be more generous now."

"Welcome to Dale Burger, may I take your order?" The voice crackled on the speaker.

"Morning, my dear! I'll have a dragon blood shake and… er… do you have those green shakes? Or are they just for Durin's Day?"

"Those are a holiday item."

"Alright, two dragon bloods. In the big cups."

Gimli drove through, paid, and handed an enormous plastic cup to Legolas. The Elf took a sip, and sputtered and coughed like he'd had a shot of pure alcohol.

"This is made entirely of sugar!" He wheezed.

"Aye. Pretty good, aren't they?"


	18. Chapter 18

"Do we need passports or something?" Legolas asked, as they pulled up to the enormous green stone bridge that took travelers from the city of Dale into the heart of the Lonely Mountain.

There were a few other cars going in, mostly human merchants, and everyone was being passed through a security check.

"Normally, yes. But you're with me, so it's probably fine." Gimli answered, rolling down his window as a Dwarven border guard approached them.

"Hey, Gimli." The guard said.

"Hey, Duain."

"Holy fuck! Is that an ELF?!" The guard peered over at Legolas, who gave a nod of greeting.

"Looks like one," Gimli shrugged, "I have to take him to see the King. He's in today, right?"

"Think so. What's going on?" Duain asked excitedly.

"Nothing. This guy's a fancy-cop from Rivendell, and he's asking a bunch of shitty questions. It's boring. Can we go through?"

"Yeah, I guess," Duain reached his hand into the car and pointed his open palm at Legolas, "Fourteen gold pieces."

"Duain!" Gimli groaned, "He's not from the Greenwood, he's from Rivendell."

"Rule is fourteen gold pieces for _any_ Elf wanting to enter the city of Erebor."

"There's a fine here?" Legolas raised an eyebrow, "For being an Elf?"

"More like a toll." Gimli explained.

"It's to make up for that time you guys let us get eaten by a dragon and wander the countryside in a state of poverty for a hundred years." Duain said, "It was kind of a big deal. There's also an Elf-tax, so I hope you brought a bagged lunch."

Legolas reached into his back pocket for his wallet, grumbling about racism and double-standards, and paid the guard.

"Thanks. Enjoy your visit."

Gimli pulled around the Men who were still going through the checkpoint. He drove down a road that was made exclusively for Dwarven cars, and then pulled into the most ornate parking garage Legolas would ever see in his life. The numbers of the stalls were etched into the massive stone markers with obvious care, and filled with real gold. Everything echoed the bold geometric patterns he'd seen at Gimli's apartment and the Iron Folk's tavern. His father had always said that Erebor was as beautiful a place as the Dwarves could ever hope to build, and for some reason Legolas had pictured something less… pretty. Maybe it had been the way King Thranduil had said it.

Gimli shut off the engine and unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Gotta walk the rest of the way," he explained. "Cars fall into the mine sometimes. Alright, now, if anybody tries to pick a fight with you, just let them. Nod and tell them that they're totally right and the Smaug thing was a dick move, and maybe let them know that you're not from the Greenwood, because that'll help."

Legolas nodded, and wondered if there would ever be a good time to tell Gimli that he _was_ from the Greenwood.

He decided that if there was, it probably wasn't right that second.

"Alright. I'll try to be… inconspicuous."

Gimli laughed. "You're a foot taller than everyone in here. You're not going to be able to pull of inconspicuous. Just try not to get stabbed."

They walked through the streets of Erebor with a minimum of difficulty. A few confused or angry looks flew their way, but Legolas was intrigued to notice that people seemed to respect Gimli and recognize him.

"You have a pretty good reputation around here." He noticed.

"Ah, well, if a lot of people die, I'd have to be the king. I think I'm something like nineteenth in the line of succession. I try to do my best because of that. The impression you leave on your own people is important, if you could be their leader one day. Even if the chances are like seventy billion to one."

When they came to the palace of the king, Gimli nodded at the guards and led Legolas up a series of steps that took them to the royal apartments. It was a large, open complex, and surprisingly airy for something built into a mountain. There was even a courtyard of sorts, though it was filled with statues instead of trees.

And the whole place was full of the sounds of shouting.

Not angry shouting, Legolas noticed, but very loud _conversational_ shouting.

"—busted the whole thing up with one hand!" A voice was saying with laughter.

"Of course, this was all back when Bombur wasn't so fat…" Another piece of conversation was going.

"—Gandalf must've known, but he never tells anybody anything!"

"FIFTY-SEVEN SALAD PLATES!"

Gimli nodded as they went up to the door that all of the conversation was coming through.

"It's always nice and quiet round here in the mornings." He said, very genuinely, with a fond smile.

"Yes," Legolas nodded politely, "It's very… homey."

Gimli knocked loudly on the door with a jaunty little rhythm. All of the conversation inside stopped, and a few moments later a dark-haired Dwarf with large brown eyes answered.

He leaned against the open doorframe and nodded at Legolas.

"What the fuck is this?" He asked.

"It's a visitor, Kili." Gimli rolled his eyes.

"Oh! It's a _visitor_!" Kili nodded, "I thought it was an Elf."

"It's both. Now, are you going to stand in the door like an arsehole, or are you going to let us in?"

Kili bowed with a sarcastic flourish and let them pass.

Inside, sitting around a table covered with all kinds of breakfast (except the kinds that have vegetables) was Thorin Oakenshield, and his Company. Minus Bilbo Baggins, who – along with Frodo – hadn't appeared to have arrived. They all watched Gimli and Legolas walk in with silent, grumpy expressions.

"What the fuck is this?" Fili asked.

"Fili." Thorin chided. He nodded at Legolas, "Gimli tells me that you're EBI. As long as you don't make a total idiot of yourself, you are welcome in these halls."

"We need to talk to Frodo about a couple of things." Gimli explained.

"Oh, well!" Bofur chimed in, "Frodo's not here just yet. Bilbo's bringing him."

"Sit down, son," Gloin slid over on the bench he was sharing with his brother, "Have some proper food."

Gimli went over and plunked down on the bench, and started talking cheerfully to his father and his uncle. Legolas stood awkwardly at the end of the table, until Thorin motioned to an empty bench next to Balin and Dwalin.

Legolas smiled stiffly as he took the seat.

"Well, it's been a long while since there was an Elf of your kind in the palace of the King!" Balin said cheerfully.

"I'm sure, but it's nice—" Legolas started to say.

"Don't talk to us." Dwalin said.

The conversation surged back up, and jolly laughter and fragments of songs overtook the table. Legolas sat awkwardly amidst it all, trying not to look too out-of-place. Balin smiled at him encouragingly.

"That's a nice… mosaic." Legolas pointed at the wall across from them, where squares of blue-green stone of varying shades had been put together to make the silhouette of a Dwarven king.

"You've got a good eye." Balin nodded, "That's more modern than most people care for, but this is Ori's house and he fancies himself a connoisseur of the _avant garde_."

"It's a piece of shit." Dwalin countered.

"Hey!" Ori called across the table, "I think that it's quite nice, and that's why I bought it!"

"Well, your taste is in your arse," Dwalin replied, and jerked his thumb towards Legolas, "And _his_ taste is in _his_ arse."

"Your face looks like a struck match." Ori told him, "And your head looks like a penis in a fur coat."

Everyone was cheering Ori on and offering up taunts of their own, when the front door opened and Bilbo Baggins and Frodo came in.

"Gimli!" Frodo said with a happy wave. Gimli stood up and asked to talk to him in the other room.

Bilbo sat down on the bench next to Legolas.

"A little overwhelmed?" He asked kindly.

Legolas hesitated, then nodded.

"Well, don't worry about it. They're just like bees, really."

"They're more afraid of me than I am of them?"

Bilbo smiled, and patted his arm.

"No, no. Those are snakes. Bees only sting you if you bother them too much."

* * *

_A/N: Sorry it took a little longer to get this chapter up. The site wouldn't let me access the 'Manage Stories' feature for about ten hours, and then I couldn't add any new chapters. It seems to be working now, thankfully._

_ Anyway, hooray! I got all the Dwarves in! Because in my awesome Cop AU, nobody died at the Battle of Five Armies. Everything happened different because they had cell phones and cars..._


	19. Chapter 19

"So," Frodo joked with a weak smile, "Are you here to arrest me?"

He and Gimli were standing in the hallway that led to Ori's kitchen. Beside them was a statue of a nude, bearded woman, holding a strategically placed veil.

"I hope not." Gimli sighed heavily, "What are you doing going to places like the White Hand?"

Frodo's smile faltered, and a glassy chill came over his eyes.

"How did you know I was there?" He asked, "Are you following me?"

Gimli put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Nobody's following you, laddie. Everybody wants you to do good now that you've got your second chance. Just tell me why you were talking to Saruman. He's a very, _very_ dangerous person."

"I—" Frodo hesitated. "I owed him some money, from before. Thorin gave me a little, so I could start off on the right foot. And I used it to pay him back."

"And that's all?"

"No. They wanted me to start working for them, selling this new stuff called Ring. Saruman said he'd forget the debt if I went back to the Shire with it, and sold to the Hobbits." Frodo explained, "But since I had the money, I didn't have to worry about it. So I said I didn't want to do it, and its fine. I don't think he cares."

* * *

"So," Fili turned to Legolas, "Are you a Narc?"

A hush came over the table, and everyone waited for the answer.

Legolas cleared his throat. "I'm sorry?"

"Are. You. A. Narc?"

"A—a _Narc_?"

"Yes!" Bofur chimed in, "A Narc! Meaning an undercover law enforcement agent who specializes in preventing the sale of illegal substances. Or, as Fili _probably_ means, a kind of snitch who pretends to be chummy so that they can turn their contacts over to the authorities, in exchange for personal benefits."

"I do, in fact, mean the second one." Fili nodded. And, just for emphasis, Kili decided to nod along with him.

"Well," Legolas smiled awkwardly, "I'm an agent of the EBI who happens to be investigating a case with heavy ties to the drug trade. So, in a sense, I'm the first definition."

Everyone nodded quietly.

"And are you a snitch?" Thorin Oakenshield demanded in a soft, commanding voice.

"Uh…" Legolas looked to Bilbo for help.

"Tread carefully, my boy," the old Hobbit whispered. "Snitches get stitches."

* * *

Gimli looked Frodo over. There was something too edgy about him. He was more nervous than he ought to be, and kept scratching at his right arm. An injection site? Gimli could feel himself panicking. If Saruman had tricked Frodo into taking a sample of Ring, then his days were numbered. Forcefully, he grabbed Frodo's arm.

"Gimli!" Frodo tried to push him away, "What are you doing?!"

The Dwarf pushed the Hobbit's sleeve up and found several long tracks of blood, cross-hatched into one another. Not an injection site, but the handy work of Orcs trying to leave a message. Gimli stepped back, and Frodo pushed his sleeve back down.

"Don't tell Bilbo! Please!" He begged, "It's only because I wouldn't do what they asked. They wanted into the Shire, but I… I…"

"Shit, Frodo." Gimli shook his head, "Did they tell you anything about the product? About the Witch-King or the Necromancer?"

Frodo looked down at the floor.

"You should stay away from them. They're not going to go along with things quietly. Give the case to someone else, Gimli! They chop people up and feed them to Orcs. Nobody gets away from them in one piece, and you're my friend. Please. Let it go."

"People are dying, Frodo. Mixed up kids who just want to snort something up their noses are being killed by this shit. I'm not letting it go. The Dwarves of Erebor have a responsibility to the people who live off the riches of the mountain. I have a duty to Dale."

Frodo nodded. "I'm going to tell you something that you absolutely must vow never, ever to tell Bilbo. Do you swear?"

"I swear it on the Arkenstone."

"There was a cousin of ours, Lotho Sackville-Baggins. He wasn't a very nice person, but it wasn't really his fault – none of the Sackville-Bagginses are nice people. Anyway, he heard about all of the money Bilbo made out of the mountain and he wanted a piece of the action, I suppose. He came up here, while I was imprisoned. He tried to make deals with Saruman, tried to throw his weight around. He stole some Ring to sell on his own, and they _killed_ him. Saruman got that creepy bloke with no eyebrows to trick him into meeting him one night, and now he's… gone. Saruman said that if I thought it was wise for a hobbit to try to stand up to him, I should check beneath the bridge between the mountain and the city. He says that Lotho's car is still there."

Gimli nodded with a dour look on his face. Grima Wormtongue had just gone from a two-horse offence to a four-horse offence.

"You stay here. No matter what." He told Frodo, "Do not leave the mountain. If I find out that you even _thought_ about going into Dale, I'll kick your nipples off."

Frodo laughed. "Where do you get sayings like that?"

"I don't know. Sometimes they just come to me. I think it's in the blood."

* * *

"So why did the Elves send _you_?" Bombur asked. "Why didn't they send that son of Elrond's? The one who's in the news sometimes."

"Oh, aye!" Gloin snapped his fingers, "The one who blew up that factory!"

"That's Agent Elrohir," Legolas cleared his throat, "And he's not good at delicate work. He's a SWAT agent, and I'm a Special Agent…"

"Special like _special needs_?" Kili asked, looking surprised.

"Kili, no." Bilbo replied, "They wouldn't give somebody who needed extra help a dangerous job like this. He means that he's a type of _specialist_."

"Oh." Kili nodded.

"And are you a boy or a girl?" Bofur asked.

"That's a fair question." Dwalin nodded.

Legolas tried not to blush. "I'm male."

"Really?" Balin said happily, "Now, see, I would have guessed that wrong."

Gimli and Frodo came back in, and Frodo sat down next to his Uncle Bilbo with a cheerful smile.

"Alright," Gimli said, "We're going. Nice to see everyone."

"Gimli," Thorin said from the head of the table, "If this trouble starts to move towards the mountain…"

"It won't."

"See that it doesn't."

"And call your mother more!" Gloin added, "She worries!"


	20. Chapter 20

"Your family is…" Legolas searched for the words as they drove out of Erebor and back into the city, "…very… sort of…"

"Wonderful." Gimli nodded, "I know. They're such warm, giving people. Sometimes I look around that table and wonder how we were all so lucky to be in one another's lives. My dad and my Uncle Oin, you know, they left to reclaim the mountain and I wanted to go with them, but they said I was too young. So I stayed with my mother, and she was so _strong_. She didn't know if Dad was coming back, if we'd ever see the mountain again, what sort of future we'd have. In those days, she used to find work cleaning taverns around the countryside and I always said to myself, if we ever get home I'm going to make sure nobody fucks it up. So I guess that's why I'm in Dale."

Legolas was surprised with himself. He was actually moved by the story. It reminded him of a young Elf, killing spiders to keep the forests clear of darkness, wondering if he could kill all the spiders in the world one day, and turn all the Mirkwoods into Greenwoods.

"Most of the cops around here are like that, really." Gimli was going on, "It took so much work to reclaim the mountain and this town, that we're going to make it nice, damn it. Even if we have to look like lunatics to get it done. One day, Dale will not be a shithole any longer. One day, this place will be the least fucked up city in the world, and Dwarves and Men will live in harmony and we'll sell things to other places at ridiculously inflated prices, and none of our children will ever see needles in the park or prostitutes working their corners. But, shit, I'm talking too much. Why do Elves join the EBI? Boredom?"

Legolas nodded. Sometimes it was boredom.

"Well, Director Evenstar and her brother joined because their mother was murdered by Orcs. That's probably the best reason. I joined because I wanted to make things safer for everyone—"

"No shit? I thought your reason would be because you, I don't know, we're a particularly nosy child and you wanted an excuse to always be looking at other people's business."

"That's Agent Lindir. Just between you and me, he's a bit of a tool-belt."

Gimli laughed.

Legolas shook his head at his own irreverence. "I'm only telling you because you're never going to meet him."

They turned down some industrial side streets that seemed to line the edge of the chasm, were the valley was steepest and the skirt of the Lonely Mountain met the land. There ground looked soggy where it was visible, not much grass, and most of the buildings were grey stone boxes. Warehouses and the like. Legolas frowned as Gimli slowed the car down.

"Why are we here?"

"Keep your eyes peeled for a Hobbit's car. You ever seen one? They look kind of like a wedge of cheese."

Outside a manufacturing plant of some kind, a group of Men in coveralls were smoking cigarettes and pipes, and watching Gimli's car with tired, suspicious eyes. Gimli stopped in front of them and pulled out his badge.

"Any of you lads seen a funny little car round here? It'll have been here awhile."

Most of them didn't want to answer, but one nodded his head.

"Keep going until you can only take a left. By the building with the broken windows."

"Good man." Gimli nodded, and put his window back up.

Legolas could already smell it before they came to the car. A dead body. Probably a week old. The funny little vehicle, which did resemble a wedge of cheese in a way, was parked the way things that are abandoned always seemed to be parked. Legolas felt a strange chill. This was usually when the roots of the forest came to greet him and tell him what was going on, but there were no trees to whisper to him there. Only stone.

Gimli knew, with certainty, that they'd come to something very important. Not only was Lotho's car still under the bridge, it looked like Lotho was too.

* * *

Agent Dernhelm dropped the file onto the temporary desk that Legolas had finally agreed to take at the Department of Justice building. He and Gimli had spent the entire morning trying to track down the underworld activity of Lotho Sackville-Baggins, and they'd found almost nothing. Hobbits could be quite quiet when they wanted to be.

"ME's report." Dernhelm announced, "A few interesting things in there. The victim was shot in the head, point blank and put into his own trunk. I hate to say it, but it was cleaner than what the Orcs would have done to him."

"Yeah," Gimli turned to Legolas, "A couple of years ago, during some Orcish gang wars, we found a guy with his tongue cut out and shoved up his anal cavity."

"With the tip sticking out the rectum," Dernhelm added, "So it looked like his buttocks was giving local law enforcement a raspberry."

Gimi nodded. "They drew googly eyes on his butt cheeks too. That shouldn't have been funny, but it was."

"The Orcs like to send weird messages."

"Sounds to me like they were just trying to be tongue-in-cheek." Legolas replied.

There was a pause.

"That wasn't as bad as usual." Gimli said to Dernhelm.

"No," she smiled, "I think he's getting better at those."

"What else you got?"

"Most importantly," Dernhelm said, "the bullet we pulled out of his skull matches the bullets found at three of the other Ring killings. So if I can tie Grima to the weapon, and get this extradition through, it'll be like an extra birthday this year. Of particular interest to you two, though, is probably that it looks like Lotho was shot at a primary location and then moved to the bridge. That's the case with the other bodies as well, meaning that there's a central location where these crimes are committed, and it's one that's thought to be innocuous enough that several people have gone to meetings there. Without suspecting that they were going to be killed."

"A base camp." Legolas nodded, "Did you send the clothing to the EBI laboratory like I asked?"

Dernhelm looked displeased. "Your lab tech isn't very friendly, but he agreed to look at the clothes all of the victims had worn. He's quick, too."

"What did he find?"

"A powder residue on the bottoms of all the shoes. Very fine, and – as your tech was eager to point out – undetectable except by Elven eyes. They tested it, and found that it's a type of—"

"Epoxy?" Legolas asked. It was a shot in the dark, but there were few residues that only Elves could see, and even fewer that would be used in a city like Dale.

"That's right." Dernhelm said, "So I tried to track down what kind of products were made with that kind of residue and found that it's—"

"Glazes. For ceramics." Legolas interrupted.

Gimli tried not to laugh or smile as he noticed Dernhelm's face getting sterner.

"I tracked down all of the ceramics factories and found that there's one central—"

"To where the bodies were dumped. A radius check."

"Do you know who owns the factory?" Gimli asked, trying to stop the bomb that was ticking in front of him.

"No." Dernhelm shook her head, "That's one of the strange things. The factory's been out of use for a long time now. Almost twenty years. The deed is in a funny name, it looked Numenorean to me, so I ran background on it. The only person to have used that name was a northern king who died _in the last age_. It has to be some kind of identity theft or something. There's nothing else on it."

She handed the address of the factory to Gimli. Pointedly to Gimli and only to Gimli.

"Huh. That's strange." Gimli stroked his beard, "I wonder…"

"Good effort, Dernhelm." Legolas stood up and grabbed his suit jacket, "We'll check this out."

"Before you go," Dernhelm said, a little nervously, "Could I ask you something?"

"Ah." Legolas nodded knowingly, "I was worried this might happen. I don't want you to feel awkward, but I make it a rule not to date coworkers and fellow agents. Thank you, though. It's flattering. And it's not because you're human. As I understand it, you're a wonderful example of a woman, and I'm sure you'll find someone who'll make you happy."

"Holy shit." Gimli mumbled.

Dernhelm smiled, very graciously.

"I appreciate your trying to spare my feelings. But I was actually going to ask you to stop talking to me like I'm the girl who brings the baked goods on Friday mornings. I'm your same rank and you're official local liaison, not your private secretary. And – don't take this personally – but I prefer to date people who respect the time and efforts of this office. Good luck at the factory." She walked back to her desk.

Gimli laughed so hard, he thought he was going to cry. He didn't think anything in that case would be funnier than Saruman of Many Colors, but then Greenleaf went and did _that_.

A clerk passed by with an armful of files, and Gimli stopped him.

"Hey, Paul. Agent Greenleaf doesn't date coworkers, so pass it around. He's sorry you're in love with him."

"Shut up." Legolas hissed, the tops of his ears bright red.

"Are you ready to go?" Gimli asked him, "Or should we head down to the lock-up, let Captain Brand know you can't marry him?"

"Please shut up."

"Things got real awkward there. Real awkward. Hey, I just want you to know that Dwarves don't marry Elves on, like, principle. So even though I'm flattered in your interest…"

"We should go to the factory."

"It was a little different. What she wanted, I mean. That wasn't what you were expecting her to say."

"Time to go. We need to go."

Gimli told everyone on the way down to the lobby about how Legolas had very important dating rules.

* * *

_A/N: Ugh. I'm totally swamped with work this month, but all I want to do is write about an Elf and a Dwarf solving crimes. :(_


End file.
